


Home

by Pemm, PreludeInZ



Series: First, Do No Harm [3]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Recovery, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-03-07 09:21:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 40,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3169643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pemm/pseuds/Pemm, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PreludeInZ/pseuds/PreludeInZ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grow me a garden of roses,<br/>Paint me the colors of sky and rain;<br/>Teach me to speak with their voices,<br/>Show me the way and I'll try again.</p><p>—ROSES, Poets of the Fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. schrödinger

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, it's us again. If you've made it this far, you probably know what you're here for. (If you don't, and you're interested, you'll want to start with _[Hold Still.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2654456)_ )
> 
>  _Home_ is the final official installment of _First, Do No Harm_ , and concerns the end of the epilogue found at the start of _P.P.S. I Love You._ Mind the tags.
> 
> We hope you enjoy the conclusion of FDNH as much as we've enjoyed writing it! It's been a hell of a ride. And hey—thanks for reading.
> 
> —Pemm

In the end, she’d just shot him, twice, in the back of his head. It hadn’t been difficult, and she’d done it dispassionately, because it needed to be done.

She watched for a few moments, staring impassively at the body. Hoping she’d done everything correctly, certain that she had. He vanished. There was a hum from the bank of computers behind her. There were terabytes of data. Below her feet, there were mainframes and harddrives and all of the other parts that she hadn’t really understood.

It took an hour.

There was a rise in the pitch of the hum of computers around her. And from the machine at the other end of the room, there was a flare, a flash of light. Less than a moment. Then another. Another. If she squinted against the brightness, she imagined she could make out a silhouetted figure. Tall, straight, and four years younger. Not that it mattered.

Well, of course it hadn’t worked. She’d erased him from the system. It would keep trying to spit him back out, but it was caught in a loop now. And would be, until the power ran down. Probably that would be at least another few years. At least nine, hopefully. Probably longer. Thunder Mountain’s power came from a nuclear generator, deep, deep underground.

While she waited, she’d ferreted around in her purse, pulled out the cross stitch sampler she was attempting to complete. “ _Home Sweet Home_ ”

Well, that had been the plan, but it had gotten a little wonky, because she wasn’t very good, and so far it was more like “ _Ho me Sweeet H ome_ ”

She swore, softly. She hadn’t noticed the extra “e”. Chagrined, she smoothed the ivory piece of fabric over her lap, with its crooked lettering a nonsense sentiment. Probably she should start over. It had only taken her a week, and it had been a muddled up week. Probably it would be easier to do, once she got home. Back home she’d be able to concentrate.

Miss Pauling had a dark streak of humor. And she took the time, she plucked a pushpin from the bulletin board on the wall. Pinned up her sad little cross stitch sampler. And after all, Medic lived here now.

If you could call it living. Technically about fifty percent of the time you could.

She’d start it over when she got home. There were worse things than starting fresh.

\------

Back home. When the cab swung up their long driveway and stopped in front of the house, it was twilight. Deep blue had settled over the soft swells of snow, shading black in the hollows of the drifts and the shadows cast by the house and the trees. The windows of the house glowed golden, and for a moment she was melancholy. Then the door flew open and before Miss Pauling had all the way turned around from paying the driver, Scout had her swept up in a fiercely tight hug.

“I thought you were _gone_.” This was muffled, he’d buried his face in her shoulder, which, given the foot of difference in their heights, took some contortion. “God, I thought…”

“Oh, dearest. No, darling, I…I had to...”

Then Noah had the pair of them in a ferocious bear hug. Probably for the best. Pauling hadn’t been sure what she was going to say after that.

\------

Noah took her aside, after dinner. After Scout had retreated to the kitchen, insisting that he’d do the dishes. Emotions were running a little high. Sometimes Scout needed things to quiet down, needed to be off on his own, needed to decompress. Even after everything, all these years later, he was still high-strung, still restive. Pauling had learned that it was easier to think of him as being finely tuned, instead, some exquisite clockwork thing. If you could wind him just right, he would exist in a state of perfect balance, between his old self and his new self. The old smile, the new laugh. The same voice, new words. Too tight and he’d snap, too loose and he’d fall apart. But just right and he was perfect.

Noah had both of them. The teeth she’d brought home for the boys, molars. Big, heavy things. One of the marred by a silvery amalgam, filling a cavity. They were small in the broadness of his hands, yellow against the pale, freckled skin of his palms. He’d glanced up, towards the kitchen, before speaking in a low voice. “Do these mean what I think they do?”

Pauling nodded, reached out and took Noah’s free hand. “Probably not _quite_ what you think, but close enough. Is it okay?”

“It’s fine with me. It’s what I needed, it closes that door. I’ll sleep easier, but then, that was never my problem. Scout, though. He won’t want his. I’ll keep it for him, but don’t take it personally. It’d mean something different to him.” Noah hesitated, and his voice had gotten a little thick, a little choked up. His fingers closed over the two keychains. “He’s never going to be free of it, I know that now. I spent a long time thinking there was something out there that’d fix him, put him back to normal.”

“I remember feeling that,” she said softly, and leaned in against him. “It’s hard not to miss who he was, and I never even really knew.”

Noah opened his hand again, looked down at the two totems. “I’m sorry that this won’t, but it was never going to. Part of him’s gone, and it’s about time I let it go.” He pulled her close, held her the way Scout sometimes did, like she was the stronger out of the pair of them. He could have tightened his arms and cracked her ribs and crushed the air out of her, but he held her like she was made of glass. “God, Pauling, I _miss_ him, more than I think you’ll ever understand. And I’m sorry, because I love you. I do, Pauling, I never knew just how much before this past week, I don’t think. But that part of him was _mine_. And it’s gone. And I’m too selfish to even wish you could have known him then.”

“Shh.” She kissed him, and knew she hadn’t fixed anything. But that had never really been the point. “I love you too. Keep him for me. He can be yours, and I have both of you, and that’s plenty. More than I deserve.”

“Never.”

Then, Scout called from the kitchen, lightly, “You two’d better not be makin’ out or gettin’ up to anything fun without me. Swear t’god. Can’t leave the pair’a you alone for five minutes.”

And then, in the hallway. A smile they shared, about the part of Scout that was still the same.

\------

That night, in a rare break from the form, they put Pauling in the middle. Noah fell asleep first, because he always did. Noah slept like a rock, and was reassuringly solid in the same way. He snored, though, through the swelling that still hadn’t gone down where Scout had hit him in the face. His split lip was still swollen, drooped open. The bruising around the eye that had been blacked had diffused, mellowed in colour, and spread across the bridge of his nose and cheekbones. Pauling gently ran a thumb across his lower lip. Sighed softly.

Scout tightened his arms around her, little spoon. Kissed her on the shoulder, pressed his face against her neck. “Y’can’t leave again, I think him’n me’d fuckin’ kill each other. He thinks _he’s_ fuckin’ dangerous, he ain’t got nothin’ on me. I _really_ could’ve hurt him. Fuck, I don’t even think he would’ve stopped me. Dunno if he _could_ have.”

It went unsaid, why he thought _she_ could have. Probably it was true, but she hoped never to find out. Pauling twisted, turned to face him, nestled up against Scout’s chest. He buried his fingers in her hair. “I won’t do it again. I’m sorry. I really thought you two would be okay without me, if you had each other.” She kissed the hollow of his throat, gently reached up to wrap her fingers around his wrist, bound once again in bandages. “You get hurt, too.”

“I just hurt _everybody_.”

“Scout, don’t. Please don’t, that isn’t true.” He didn’t answer, and she cuddled insistently closer. “Scout--”

“Was really scared I hurt you. ‘Cuz you left.” He heaved a shaking sigh and she wrapped her arms around him. “You left, an’ I thought...thought...m-maybe you went lookin’ for, um. For Bidwell. ‘Cuz he’s normal. Ain’t all fucked up like me an Pyro, an’ you _should_ have someone normal, you really should. I never wanted you in this thing, Miss Pauling. Not really, not like this. I don’t get it. I really don’t get it, I ain’t ever wanted to have to _need_ the both of you. That ain’t fair. I don’t deserve...”

“Hey. Shh. I love you. Okay? You have to know I love you, because I _really_ love you. That’s hard for me to say, you know that. But I love you and I love Noah, and we both need you. Mostly _I_ need you. I need you even more than Noah does.”

He groaned audibly at this. Noah stirred and they both hushed their conversation back down to whispers. “You _really_ don’t, fuck, don’t say that t’me, I can’t stand it, I hate bein’ pitied, an’ I hate for you to lie to me, so don’t--”

She squirmed, wriggled herself upward so she could look him in the eyes, still that cold, lonely pale blue. Cradled his jaw in her palm, ran her thumb along his cheekbones. And then, softly, not to wake Noah, “I’m not. Scout, I promise, I’m really not. I wouldn’t lie about this, why would I? Scout, you don’t get to tell me how I feel about you. That’s not your job. A long time ago I said I didn’t need you. That’s not true anymore.”

“You--”

“ _Stop_ . Scout, listen to me. You make me want to be _good_ . I am not good. I am very, _very_ bad. I was just made that way. I am a murderer. I’ve done things that are worse than you can imagine, and I know you think you can imagine the worst. You make me want to be kind, you make me care. No one does that to me. Noah doesn’t do that to me, if I didn’t have you, I wouldn’t know how to care about Noah. I didn’t care about Noah when I first met him, but God, Scout, somehow I cared about you. That’s the only thing you’ve ever done that’s hurt me, something about you makes me care. And it’s terrifying and amazing. I never knew I needed that.”

He’d been listening. She never would have known just how well he would learn to listen, but she loved that he did. “I don’t think you’re bad. You’ve _always_ been nice t’me, always cared, even when I was being a stupid idiot _bastard_. And ‘bout Noah, too, an’ he just a gigantic pain in the ass. You could kill a million people, I don’t care. I love you. I think you’re good.”

“I know, darling. Thank you. I think that’s probably the only reason why I am.” She kissed him. The sort of kiss she always felt a little guilty about, when Noah was sleeping. The sort that was deep and long and _meant_ something, brought the slight pressure of tears to her eyes. “Should get some sleep,” she whispered, when she got her lips and her tongue and her voice back.

“It’s late.” A tiny kiss on the tip of her nose. “Thanks for talkin’ to me.”

“Thanks for listening.”

“Any time.”

\------

Far away, deep underground. A fierce surge of power from a nuclear reactor, about once a second. Technically, if it continued on for about nine years, she would just keep killing one person. About a quarter of a billion times.

Probably that would be about enough.

  


 


	2. fit

Pauling was home and it was a brand new year, and Noah had made a New Year’s resolution. Several, in fact. He generally didn’t, generally Noah was of the opinion that the rest of the world needed to alter itself around his obvious perfection. So resolution wasn’t really the word. He just had goals.

The first was to get back in shape. He was getting a little squishy around the middle and he was thirty, and he’d _used_ to be able to grab Scout around the waist, haul him over his shoulder, and bring him upstairs for sex. He could still do it with Pauling, but Pauling was tiny and these days he worried about throwing his back out. Had to work on that.

The second was being less of an asshole. It had started as a coping mechanism and it had turned into a part of his personality, and when Noah took a long hard look at who he was, it was one of the few remaining things he really hated about himself. He’d been sort of passively working on that, ever since the discovery that Scout’s coping mechanism was cutting himself open, bleeding his damage out. So.

Phase one had been just _not_ saying the mean thing. Biting his tongue. It had already made life a lot better. Phase two was going to involve beating Pauling at her own game. It had taken the absence of her to notice, that there weren’t any more soft, gentle touches, or little stolen kisses, caresses, gestures. No more honeys or darlings or sweethearts. Pauling had filled the space between him and Scout with casual affection, and Noah was wondering why he hadn’t noticed this sooner.

Scout was usually gone when Noah woke up. Scout got to hold Pauling while she fell asleep, Noah got to hold her when she woke up. Noah got to wake Pauling up with his hands on her back, stroking her shoulder blades, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her into him, kissing her neck and teasing her thighs apart from behind with his knee. Murmuring good morning, kissing her ear. And sometimes that was as far as it went, and usually it didn’t even need to go further, because it was easy with Pauling.

And Pauling would stretch and yawn and kick him out of bed, and half the time roll over and go back to sleep, sprawling out across the bed with their pillows of varying softness, and the multiple blankets of different weights, and the sheets all cool and soft. Pauling had a lifetime of early morning hours to make up for, and sleeping in was her favourite luxury. So Noah would kiss her a final time, go shower, pull on a robe against the chill of the house, and then he would go find Scout. Scout was usually in the kitchen, usually had made coffee, and was usually waiting for someone to show up so he could feed them. It was the sort of usually that was pretty much like always. Today Noah stopped off in the little room at the top of the stairs, the one he used as sort of an ersatz studio. He rifled idly through his desk, looking for something, and when he found it, slipped it into his pocket.

Phase two. He’d used to be so good at this. Ten years ago, he’d been trawling loosely through the old team, looking for prospects from behind a mask, where no one could get a good look at him, where he could see them and they couldn’t see him back. It was strange, thinking about it. How he’d idly considered Sniper, cast a disparaging eye over Engie, dismissed Spy out of hand as being too fucking queer. How he’d been arrogant enough to assume that he could have had any single one of them, if he’d really worked at it. He hadn’t even needed to really work at it, with Scout. Maybe that had become the problem.

Because trotting down the stairs, ducking into the kitchen, and there he was, like always. Cup of coffee, black. Making batter for waffles. It had been Pauling who’d first pointed it out, how funny it was that Scout gravitated towards the kitchen. It made Noah smile, and he paused and really tried to get a good look at him. He’d always loved it, how Scout was tall, tall and lean and narrow-framed without being scrawny. He _had_ been scrawny. When Noah had first met him, when Noah was still Pyro, Scout had been a skinny, scrawny dumb kid with a sunburnt nose and tan lines and a shirt that didn’t quite fit him, too big for him, but not on purpose, the way Noah’s were always slightly too small.

Now everything about him seemed to fit, his clothes no longer hung off him, he no longer seemed uneasy and tense in idleness. Fragile, weak, pathetic thing. Well, not anymore. Noah remembered looking at Scout a long time ago, crumpled on the kitchen floor in Pauling's arms, dying the same way he had been for years, only without anything to catch him, this time. Noah remembered looking at him, hating him for his brokenness, and being cruel. He had let go of the choice to be cruel. Now he was working out how to be kind. And now he had been staring long enough that it got noticed, by those grey-blue eyes, a little bit shadowed.

“Whatcha starin’ at?”

“Just you.”

“Fuckin’ creepy, man.” Grinning when he said it, though. “Coffee’s on.”

“Yeah, it always is. You’re really good about that. Thanks.” Noah wandered into the kitchen, did the thing that Pauling did to him. Slipped his arms around Scout’s waist, hugged him. “Did you sleep okay? You look kinda tired.”

Scout shifted, turned to lean back against the counter, shrugged. “Oh, ehh. Not great. Y’know me, man. Sometimes s’just how I get. They ain’t ever _all_ gonna be good nights.”

Noah knew that. That was all right. “Mmm. If there were ever anything I could do…” He left it hanging.

“Pyro, if I can’t sleep ‘cuz I wanna fuck you, y’know I’ll wake you up. Pauling, too. Only polite.”

 _You’ve slept through me fucking Pauling before. We made it a game, because Pauling’s just that little bit wicked, and you were finally sleeping like a person again. I felt mean afterward and I didn’t care. That was years ago. But--_ “ I didn’t mean that. I mean, if you wanna wake me up for a bit of screwing around, that’s fine, but it wasn’t what I meant. Just then, I mean..” -- _god, I’ve gotten bad at this. Was I ever even actually good at this? How is Pauling so good at this? How is this so much easier with Pauling?_

“Aw.” Scout grinned, tousled Noah’s hair. Kissed him, somewhat perfunctorily. “Whatcha want, anyway? Hungry?”

“Yeah. Sure, I mean, yes. Um, if you’re making breakfast, anyway. Of course you are.” Noah felt his cheeks warming slightly. _I am not the one who gets tongue-tied. I mean, I_ _**am** _ _, but because of significant mental stress and anxiety, not because of_ _**you** _ _. What the hell’s gotten into me, this was how I used to make you get. All babbly and awkward and it was adorable. I am not adorable, I feel like a goddamn moron. Did I used to make you feel like a moron, talking to me?_

This got a raised eyebrow, a slight narrowing of Scout’s eyes, concern. “Hey, y’okay? You’re bein’ weird. Like, not _really_ weird, just kinda weird. Did y’need something?”

“...No.” _Just you_ . _Oh my god, get yourself together, this is not how this moment went in your head. Damn bastard, all well-adjusted and grown up and back to normal. I don’t get flustered,_ _**he** _ _gets flustered. That does it. I’ll show him._ “ Actually, I wanted to give you something.” _Just you wait, I am going to goddamn destroy you. Probably I can be a little cruel. I’m good at it._

The ring had been his father’s. Noah had swiped it off a table on his way out the door one day, just because he was feeling petty and spiteful. Also on the grounds that he shared his father’s initials, and the name had been the only valuable thing the old bastard had ever given him. It was a stupid thing to do, his father had long, spindly fingers, and Noah’s were blunt, thick with muscle. His nails were perpetually stained with dirt or paint, the pads of his palms roughened with callouses, from years of hefting a flamethrower, an axe. Noah had ugly hands that had done ugly things, and his father’s ring was never going to fit past even the first of his knuckles.

Scout, though. All the scars on his wrists and palms were a tragedy. Scout had elegant, slender hands, long fingers, lightly, evenly tanned. Wrists that were a shame to only ever see hidden. He unbound them, now and again, when he wanted to make new scars but instead chose to cover up the old ones. What Noah had done for him was all ethereal, organic. Whorls and curves and curlicues of fanciful abstraction. What Scout painted on his palms in dark, rich red impermanence was all angular geometry, all repeating lines and complex patterns.

So, the squared off setting of lapis lazuli and the letters sharply engraved into the shoulders of it seemed suitable, as Noah took Scout’s left hand, and slipped the ring onto the fourth finger without comment. Now the cruelty, light and uncaring, as he gently twisted it, so the deep blue stone faced upwards. He ran a thumb over it, idly, caressing the subtle curve of the warm gold band, the smoothness of the stone. There was a tiny, almost invisible chip in the corner of it. “It was my father’s. Doesn’t fit me, of course, my fingers are too big. I stole it, a long time ago, but I didn’t think you’d mind. I doubt he missed it any more than he missed _me_.”

“...what…” Faintly, like he didn’t understand. The hand Noah had taken and still held was trembling now, and the other had clenched on the edge of the counter. This was better. Noah grinned. This was more like what he’d wanted. “I…don’t. I--” Just helpless. There’d always been a part of Noah that liked it when Scout was helpless. This was the good kind of helpless, though.

“Oh, don’t be dumb, love. You know what it means.” Noah’s smile broadened now, back where he liked to be, squarely the more emotionally stable of the two of them. “It fits, doesn’t it?”

Scout's right hand left the counter's edge and then he seemed not to know what to do with it. Compulsively he sank his teeth into the knuckle of his forefinger, which was a new behavior that had cropped up, in the absence of razors.

Noah caught his wrist, pulled it down gently, caught it with the other hand between both of his own. “Hey. Hey, don’t. It’s okay. All right? Look, it’s not a big deal, okay? This is just where we are now, and I thought...well, I thought, we’ve come a long way, we ought to have something to show for it. You especially. Right? I love you.”

“Mmm.” A long, searching pause, and then, like an afterthought, like he’d found his voice again. “Love you. I love you, too. J-just, I don’t...what...why?” He tugged his left hand free, stared dumbly at the ring. Tightened the fingers of his right hand against Noah’s. “With this. What changed?”

At the end of the day, Noah would always be a smug individual. And this had been _perfect_. “Oh, I don’t know,” he shrugged, effortlessly indifferent. “Just, I think I’m maybe a little bit in love with you. Again. You know how that is.”

By the way he broke down sobbing against Noah’s shoulder, Scout certainly did. 


	3. lunch date

Sometimes his ma took the train down from Boston, then caught a cab over to his neighbourhood, then walked the rest of the way. Gabe always tried to get her to warn him when she was coming, told her it was a colourful, rougher (meaning: gay and kind of aggressive about it) part of town, but she would never hear of it.

She always walked into his shop like she owned it herself, and Gabe had to drop everything, shuffle around what he could leave to his employees and what he couldn’t, the things he had to summon Peter down from the apartment for, to leave to be handled in a way they would have to fight about later.

Because his Ma only ever wanted to talk about Adam.

Gabe had the misfortune of apparently being the last of his brothers to hear from Adam. And there hadn’t been anything from Adam in the four years since.

So he took his mom out for a lunch date, somewhere expensive, let her warm up with polite small talk about her grandkids, his brothers. Gabe liked his nieces and nephews, didn’t get to see them as often as he wanted. There were nine of them now, he tended only to get glimpses during the high holidays. Sometimes he stayed home with Peter, skipped out. His mother tended to give him shit about that, but he’d learned that there was a wall around his family now, and even if he could step over it, it was still a wall.

They were lingering over a piece of cheesecake to split, Gabe had ordered two cups of espresso to follow it, when his Ma put down her fork and heaved a shaky sigh. “Gabe, I think Adam’s dead.”

“ _Ma_ …”

She shook her head vigorously, her earrings rattling. “It’s been too long. He would have come _home_ by now. S-something awful happened and he was _all alone_ . My poor baby boy, oh _Gabe_ …”

His Ma did this about three times a year, usually between the holidays, when she had too much time to spend alone without her family, her thoughts tended to turn towards Adam. Poor Adam. Poor Adam who’d gotten lost and swallowed up by something, she couldn’t bear that he was missing, couldn’t stand it. Gabe chose the restaurant he did because he was good friends with the maitre d’--had done his backpiece, in fact--and knew he and his ma would be ushered kindly to a private dining room, where she could bawl into the napkins.

Gabe had usually joined her in having a bit of a weep about Adam. He had used to need her to remind him, periodically, about his little brother lost out there in the world. Family was important to Gabe. And he was just too busy to spend enough time being really broken up about Adam.

Over the years, his Ma had wheedled out most of the story about the last time Gabe had heard from her youngest son. Adam had called, he had sounded exhausted. He hadn’t even tried to hide it. He hadn’t bothered with the usual small talk. Said something about losing his job, not knowing where to go next. He’d asked Gabe how you could tell if you were staying with someone because you loved them, and not just because you needed them. He’d asked at what point it wasn’t fair to ask someone you loved to put up with you anymore. Gabe hadn’t been able to answer. Gabe had selfishly begged to know what had happened, what was wrong. Told his brother he could come stay with him, if he needed, his couch was always free. Pleaded with him not to do anything stupid. There’d been nothing but dark, awful silence on the other end of the line, and then an incongruently disconnected goodbye.

“Thanks, Gabe, man. Take care’a Ma an’ that guy, Peter, you guys are okay. I’m all right, Gabe, don’t worry. Ain’t goin’ anywhere. Tryin’ not to. Sorry. I’m sorry...for...fuck. Fuck it. G’bye, Gabe.”

The phone didn’t get answered in the week Gabe spent calling back. The phone was disconnected from service after that. And that had been the last of Adam.

Scout, though. His ma was maybe a little bit right, about Adam. Adam was maybe a little bit dead and gone.

Gabe had seen bits and scraps of Adam, frankensteined into this tall, grim stranger. But mostly, if Gabe was honest, he’d seen Scout. Scout was all scars and lean muscle, expensive taste and quietude. He had a way of not-talking, in the spaces that Adam would have filled up with chatter. He seemed to radiate a sense of loosened tension. Like he’d been drawn taut in the years he’d been gone, and then allowed to let go. He still had a bit of his old snap, sometimes in the way he laughed or the way the light caught his eyes. Sometimes he would bubble up about something he had opinions on (baseball had been discussed at length and loudly), but for the most part, Adam wasn’t there any longer.

Scout had shown up at his doorstep, claiming to be Adam, but when they had parted ways, Gabe had pulled only a fraction of his brother’s darkness into visibility on the surface, and  realized just how barely he knew him anymore.

And he’d been asked not to tell his Ma. About Adam. Scout. Her son, whoever he was. Scout had disappeared, back to Oregon, conveniently forgot to leave Gabe his address. Pauling and Noah had been intractable when he asked. They were protective, and they did what Scout wanted.

Well, fuck that. Gabe was a mama’s boy, worse than Adam had ever been. And he didn’t owe Scout a fucking thing.

His Ma was still sniffling into his shoulder, but instead of joining in, Gabe had been deliberating. He spoke, deliberately. “Ma. Ma, you ain’t ever really _looked_ for Adam. You were always scared of what you’d find. Ma, my gut says he’s still out there. My gut says he’s got good reasons, but the hell with that. That guy you’re dating, Ma? Ain’t he the one got him the job in the first place? ...Ain’t that the reason you called him up in the first place, t’ask about Adam, an’ all the shit that came after was just you lettin’ him take your mind off it?”

His Ma had stiffened in his arms, the sniffling had stopped. Gabe was on thin ice and he knew it. "How  _dare_ you..."

"Ma.  _Listen._ " Gabe was firm, stern. Trying to give her a hint. “I’m just saying, Ma. Talk to him. The guy loves you, great. Make ‘im prove it. Make him drag my dumbass baby brother back home. You said he wants to marry you, said you been puttin’ him off. Can you think of a better wedding present, Ma?”

“...when did you talk to Adam?”

The ice was splintering, and Gabe was a terrible liar. “Oh, hell, Ma, you know, it was about four years ago…”

“Gabe, you little bastard. Don’t you lle to your mother. _When did you talk to Adam?”_

Gabe sighed. TIghtened his embrace around his mother’s shoulders. She was tiny, like the lady who’d come into the shop, dragging his baby brother by the arm. She was stern and a little bit mean, like the seraph of a man that had made Gabe’s jaw drop. He kissed his mother’s hair. “Sorry, Ma. Was maybe two months ago. He seems okay. Tell your fiance he wants to start on the west coast.”


	4. telephone

The phone handset hit the cradle, knocked against the hook, and bounced off to skid across the table before falling off and dragging the rest of the phone with it. Gabe, who sat at his desk with his head in his hands and rubbing his eyes, only half-noticed. “ _Shit._ ”

From across the room came Peter’s bullhorn voice. “Which one this time?”

“Who do you _think_.”

“Lyle?”

“ _Yes,_ Lyle, stupid bastard don’t know the meaning of ‘no.’ Or ‘fuck off’ for that matter.”

Gabe didn’t lift his head, but he heard Peter get up and cross the room. The desk creaked as he leaned against it. “Same thing as the others?”

“Yes,” Gabe muttered, finally looking up. Not at Peter, at the phone line now hanging over the edge of the desk. “Adam this, Adam that. Davey said Ma said you said he’s runnin’ around Providence homeless an’ on heroin, where the _hell_ did they come up with that, first of all. And then I get _fuckin_ ’ Lyle breathin’ down my damn neck wantin’ to know why he came to _me_ an’ not _him,_ or why not anybody but me is what he was really sayin‘. Told him where to shove it. Screamin’ at me when I hung up on him.”

Peter listened on in silence, sympathetic. He was good at that, he was a master of comfortable silences. Eventually, he leaned over and carefully put the phone back together. As he set it back down on the desk, he said, “Want me to start fielding calls?”

“I … yeah. Yeah, if y’could, that’d be real nice. I am about one ring away from blowin’ a gasket here.”

“Sure thing,” Peter said, ruffling Gabe’s hair. Gabe grumbled a bit before leaning into his hand.

 

* * *

 

The phone only rang another three times that day, and all three of them were customers. There was only one appointment, and that was just a consultation. Not even any walk-ins. Slow day. Gabe didn’t mind.

The door did chime near the end of the day. Gabe got up and went to see who it was, and when he saw Lyle standing there on the welcome mat—Lyle with his greasy hair and greasy scowl—Gabe nearly turned around and walked away again. “You hung up on me,” Lyle started.

“Yeah, I sure as shit did, an’ I know you ain’t got a brain so maybe I gotta tell you that means I don’t want to talk to you,” Gabe snapped. “I sure as hell don’t want you filthin’ up my shop, turn tail an’ get outta here before I make you.”

“S’filthy enough already, you’re in it,” Lyle drawled, looking bored. “I just want some fuckin’ answers, dick. He’s my brother too.”

Gabe barked a laugh. “So am I, ain’t ever stopped you from treatin’ me like garbage.”

“Whatever. Where’s Adam?”

“Not here. Wouldn’t tell you anyway. Get outta my damn shop.”

Lyle growled, stepping forward. Gabe bristled instantly, an entire childhood of neighborhood brawls gasping back to life in his chest. He reached up and started pulling out his piercings, eyes locked on Lyle. Lyle sneered. “Scared I’ll rip your fag jewelry out?”

Gabe pulled out the bar and the septum ring, and the rings in his eyebrow. “No,” he said. “You ain’t never been able to hit me anyway.”

“That ain’t how I remember it.”

“Yeah, well, like I said, you ain’t got a brain.”

Lyle growled, lurched forward, swung. Gabe darted to the side and hurled the handful of metal into Lyle’s face.

Lyle cussed and flinched and by then Gabe had swung back at him. In a matter of seconds they were properly trading blows. Gabe already had a split lip, and he’d cuffed Lyle on the ear hard enough to flinch him. His brother took another swing with too much power behind it, and Gabe ducked to drive his shoulder into his gut.

It had been a long time since he’d gotten into a proper physical fight. He’d never been great at them. That had changed after he met Peter, and Peter insisted on basic self-defense that amounted to more than alleyway brawling. He knocked Lyle on his ass and kneed him square in the face, though with less force behind it than he would have strictly liked. As much as he hated the guy, Lyle didn’t deserve his nose being shattered.

Just… one little fracture, maybe.

By the time Peter came downstairs the fight was over. Lyle was snarling with tears of pain pouring from his eyes and blood pouring from his mouth and nose, cussing Gabe out as he tried to regain his balance enough to make it to the door. Gabe was crouched down, trying to recover his jewelry from the floor. He glanced up when Peter appeared.

“Oh, hey, _darling,_ ” he started, loud. Gabe did not call Peter darling. He didn’t call anyone darling. “Oh, _Lyle_ , have you met my boyfriend? He’s just a beast, that Peter. Petey, couldja show my _dear_ brother to the door? I think prob’ly he needs to go lie down somewhere. Like in the road, maybe. He’s tryin’ta find Adam, poor stupid thing, thinks he could actually catch up to him.” He shook his head. “Just sad.”

Peter looked between the two of them for a moment. Strongly considered going back upstairs. But in the end he hauled the sputtering Lyle up by his shirt and deposited him outside, on the sidewalk. It was a narrow sidewalk. Almost a road, really.


	5. delightful

The anniversary of the three of them arriving at Pauling's farmhouse had become sort of a private holiday of theirs, or so they'd decided last year. This was their fourth year in the house, now: it was meant to be a day of lounging and good food and enjoying each other. Last year Pauling had hidden notes with absolutely filthy suggestions written on them in the boys' clothes, and Noah had spent approximately the entire day naked or nearly so. Scout had been trying to decide what to cook for the occasion for a week. He'd narrowed it down to truffle omelettes and the really  _nice_ bacon he'd picked up a few days ago for breakfast, and a little before nine he wriggled his way out from between his partners and went down to start things.

The doorbell rang at exactly 9AM.

Scout always had to stop when the doorbell rang, just to remember what it was. They got visitors maybe once, twice a year, and one of those visitors was usually a deliveryman. He turned the heat to low under the bacon, and went to see who it was.

A stranger, was who. He was neatly-dressed in a button-down and slacks that didn’t seem to have a speck of water on them, an overcoat thrown over one arm. An umbrella dangled from the same hand. He had a narrow face and frame, sharp all over, and white brushed his sideburns. Behind him rain bucketed down. “H’lo?” Scout said, leaning on the door handle.

Some part of him realized who the man just an instant before he spoke. It felt like a fist closing around his heart, and he knew intimately what that felt like. “…Good morning,” said the RED Spy. “Scout.”

Scout stared at him, frozen, the rhythm of the rain and the sizzle of meat in the background suddenly empty noise. He’d seized up. His hand tightened around the door handle. Spy noticed, glancing at his hand, his shoulders, his face. “Perhaps I have come at a bad time?”

Scout tried to steady himself. His voice felt wrong in his mouth when he spoke. “… the hell’re you doin’ here.”

“Can a man not pay his old teammates a visit?”

“No,” Scout hissed through his teeth. “‘Specially not you, you ain’t fuckin’ welcome here you goddamn creep, you, you turn right the fuck around an’ march on outta here—”

“You’re being terribly dramatic,” Spy said, droll. “If it is the unannounced visit upsetting you I—”

“ _Why_ are you _here._ ”

Spy sighed, louder than necessary. From his back pocket he pulled out an envelope, holding it out to Scout. Scout stared at it suspiciously for a few seconds, then ripped it out of Spy’s grasp. As he turned it over in his hand, Spy wiped his palm off on his coat. “It is from your mother.”

Scout went very still. Took a slow breath. “Fine,” he said stiffly. “Great. Thanks. Leave.”

Spy narrowed his eyes, ever so little. Scout had seen the gesture a thousand times. “I suppose it was fruitless to expect anything resembling hospitality.”

“Yeah, maybe that’s on account’a you ain’t fuckin’ welcome here, you weren’t ever invited none an’ your ugly fuckin’ mug is the last damn thing I wanted to see today, get off my fuckin’ porch before I make you.”

“I would _love_ to, but to return to your mother without you is not what—”

“ _Get off my fucking porch!_ ”

Scout could not remember the last time he had truly yelled at someone. When Pyro left, maybe, but even that had not carried the bone-shaking anger that rose in him now. Spy watched him coolly, unmoved. Spy had never been moved by anything about Scout.

He sure fucking moved when Scout hauled back and slugged him square in the face.

 

* * *

 

Something pulled Noah out of sleep. He pushed himself up on his elbows, blinking hard. Next to him, Pauling shifted and grumbled. Noah waited until she was still again, and listened.

Yelling, he figured out soon enough. Scout—fuck. He shook Pauling enough to get her to wake, and only got out, “Something with Scout,” before he dashed downstairs.

Scout was not in the kitchen, though it looked like he had been a little while ago. Noah had expected to find him in the middle of a panic attack or something, and his absence slowed him. The sound of a struggle down the hall drew his ear—he ran—

He barely registered Pauling running downstairs as he made for the door, where he could see Scout on someone on the porch, just tearing into them, shit. He bolted, shouting, and grabbed Scout by the shirt and pulled. “Scout! _Scout!_ Stop it, fuck, you’ll hurt him—”

Scout roared something, thrashing and snarling as Noah tried to haul him off. He nearly had, when he laid eyes on the man Scout was fighting with. There are some faces—or eyes, really—you don’t ever forget. Noah gaped, staring, and Scout ripped away again. Noah forgot to stop him.

 

* * *

 

“Noah? What’s—Scout, oh my God—”

Pauling skidded to a halt in the doorway, catching herself on the frame, and found Noah staring down at Scout and a stranger. She grabbed his arm. “For fuck’s sake, _Noah_!”

He started, blinking at her. In front of them the stranger kicked Scout hard, in the gut, and he fell onto the porch with a winded grunt. Noah shook himself and grabbed him. “Lemme _go_ , fuck you Pyro that’s fuckin’ _Spy_ he fuckin’ _found us,_ I’ll fuckin’ kill the stupid French bastard let _go_ —”

Pauling leapt backwards as Noah dragged Scout into the house. She was not expecting him to practically throw Scout into the house and slam the door.

Scout twisted and threw himself at the door with a thud, scrabbling for the handle. He pulled, swore, put one foot on the frame and pulled again. Nothing. Through the window Pauling could see Noah right by the door—he must have been holding it shut. Oh, hell. Hell. “Scout!”

“Stay _outta it_ , Miss Pauling, _fuck_ , did, d-did you know? Did you tell ’im?” and suddenly all his attention was fixed on her. Pauling fell silent, staring. Never had she seen Scout enraged. Angry, yes, furious even, and the boys had gotten into fistfights before. She thought she knew how to handle Scout, all of him.

She wasn’t entirely sure if the person in front of her now was Scout—this man huge and with his breath thundering through him like a storm, tense and coiled and looking for a target. His hands were locked into fists.

Pauling took a careful step backwards.

Outside, she heard Noah start yelling, but he wasn’t yelling at Scout.

* * *

 

Noah slammed the door shut behind him, kept his hand locked around the knob. Sure enough, it tried to lurch back open. Noah was an immovable object to Scout's unstoppable force. It was heaved back a second time, but he was braced for it. The door stayed shut.

Another few seconds and the pulling had stopped. Good. Noah twisted to face Spy and _snarled_ . "What the fuck do you think you're doing here?!"

Spy was nursing a bleeding lip and what looked like a broken nose. His tie had been pulled out of orientation, and his hair, probably immaculate before Scout had gotten at him, was ruffled awkwardly. He gave Noah a murderously disgusted look. "Ah. You're still hanging around him."  
  
Noah's hand shot out, grabbing for his collar. Spy deftly sidestepped him. "Please don't," he said, irritable. "I had expected it from Scout but much less from _you_ , Pyro, and unlike Scout I will not hesitate to gut you if you lay a hand on me."  
  
Still holding the door shut, there was nothing more Noah could do, anyway. Spy had moved out of reach. Instead Noah glared at him, desperately trying to find words. "You---talk, then, start talking. How did you find us?"  
  
"It has only been three years. Surely you have not forgotten that I deal in intelligence. But: I am here on behalf of your _partner's_  mother. I was behested to seek him out and persuade him to see her again. That is _all_."  
  
Noah glared at him, his grip on the door loosening. "...Why'd Scout attack you?"  
  
Spy snorted. "Because I would not get off the porch. Ask him yourself. I have done nothing wrong."  
  
Nothing indeed. Noah's eyes narrowed, suspicious still, but honestly it sounded like a legitimate reaction of Scout's.  _Nothing wrong._

Spy dealt in intelligence, sure. Noah had always suspected he knew what was going on behind the scenes at RED.

"... so you're only here to try and get him to go home."

"I believe that is what I said, yes."

Noah bit his lip, letting his arm go slack on the door as he turned the answer over in his head. It wasn't like that wasn't exactly what he'd been trying to get Scout to do for over a year now.

"... alright," Noah said at last, with a sigh, and drawing his hand down his face. "When he calms down. You can come in then."

"Delightful," Spy said in a tone that suggested it was anything but.


	6. guest

All the time they'd been together, as long as she'd known him, Pauling still wasn't sure if honesty was always the best policy, where Scout was concerned. Plenty of lies had been exchanged between the three of them, usually with good intentions. Her instincts told her it might do more harm than good this time, though. Still. She hated to lie.

She took a deep breath, planted her feet, pulled a syringe from her sleeve, the one she'd grabbed from the nightstand just before she'd gone scrambling out of the bedroom after Noah. One of her last that wasn't something actually deadly, she was going to need to break into the hospital again. She slipped the sheath from the needle, ignoring the way Scout’s eyes bored into her, and sighed. “Okay,” she murmured, half to herself.

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” he breathed, hands still clenched tightly, daring her.

Pauling had a voice she reserved for people who paid her to humiliate and control them. It was a hobby, a diversion. It satisfied some deep, dark urge, one she kept far away and separate from the boys. Scout would shatter like glass if she ever really put her heels to him, and Noah only _thought_ he liked to be dominated. Noah liked to be tied up and teased a little, but that was the extent of it, and she wouldn't push him further without being certain it was what he wanted. Still, it was a diversion with its useful tricks. And she’d learned a _lot_ from the Administrator. When she needed to, Pauling had a voice like a steel trap. She layered iron into her tone, straightened her spine. “You need to stop.”

“What the _fuck_ d’you think y--”

Pauling returned his stare, her thumb on the plunger of the syringe. Stood her ground. “I’m saying don’t come any closer. You’re scaring me. You’re bigger than me, you’re faster than me, and I've _never_ seen you this mad. You’re mad at me, and I don’t know why. I don’t trust you not to hurt me. I don’t know what Noah’s doing, but I don’t trust you not to hurt _him_ either. There’s blood all over your shirt, you've already hurt Spy. And he's one of my colleagues, my _friend_ , and I don't know why you tried to beat the shit out of him, but I'm not on your side right now.”

“Yeah? Well, he _fuckin’_...”

“Scout, _stop_. Listen,” she interrupted, and refused to shrink away when he snapped his teeth shut angrily, jaw clenched and fingers flexing into claws, before digging into the old scars on his palms. That was a bad sign. “I don’t know why Spy is here.”

“Damn well better _not_ , ‘cuz I…”

“I said _stop_.”  She wasn't even dressed, she was still in her nightshirt, an old flannel thing that had actually been Scout’s. But she’d needed something to wear to bed one night, hadn’t wanted to go to her room and get one of her own things, and had dug it out of his dresser and claimed it for her own. Usually she found it big and cozy and comforting. Now she was just aware of how it made her look small, just how much bigger it was on her small frame. She had to push the cuffs up, keep her hands free. Keep the needle ready.

He did. His eyes had narrowed slightly at her, flickered to the syringe in her hand, reevaluating. Some of the anger had gone out of him, wariness creeping in.

“I’ll tell you what I know about Spy. I didn’t invite him, first off. But he knew that I live here. He’s known since I first bought the place, he helped me line up the finances, make sure it was all secure. You probably haven’t noticed, but we’re kind of off the grid.”

Scout gaped at her. “He...fuckin’ _Spy_? That ugly fuckin' creep’s known where our house is this whole time, an’ you--”

Pauling flared right back, this time. “ _My house_. He’s known where _my_ house is. When I bought it, it was just my house. My home. Not yours, not Noah’s. I bought it for _me._  He helped make sure I had a place that was safe, because I've done things and hurt people and I have good reasons to be afraid of what could happen if they found me. Mann Co isn't protecting me anymore, so I needed to figure out how to exist in the world with no one looking out for me. When you two came along, with all your fear and your damage, I was so, so grateful to Spy for all his help. Because he's a _big_ part of the reason why I knew I could protect the two of you, here. Not that _you_ ever knew that."

There was a letter clenched in his right hand, crumpled. She gestured to it, purposefully, with the syringe. “Not that you've ever opened any of the mail you've gotten, but did you know it goes through four proxies before it gets here? The addresses people have for us are still in the Badlands. From there, it ends up routed through a random chain of people, who exist on a contract only to muddle up the trail back to this place. I get a bill at the end of every year from everyone who’s obfuscated our mail for us.”

The letter in Scout’s hand had been hand delivered. And like every last one that came before it, he wasn’t going to open it. He couldn’t. He had to clench his fingers to keep them from trembling, because this letter felt different from all the others. It hadn’t been routed all over the country, hadn’t shown up covered in stamps and obscure postmarks. It was more immediate than any of the others, it had been in only one other person’s hands since it had left his mother’s. He hated the way it felt to hold onto it, but he also couldn’t bring himself to let it go. It was heavier than it should have been between his fingers, and it seemed to be pulling all the heat out of him. He had the sudden, jarring realization that it probably still smelled like his mother’s perfume. This cut to the heart of him, and he started to lose his hold on the fury that had gone along with seeing Spy.

But Pauling continued. “Our phone? A secure line. Can’t be traced, can’t be tapped. Almost never rings, because it’s an unlisted number. You know who has that number? Every damn one of your former colleagues. It’s how I knew when Heavy and Demo and Sniper wanted to visit--did you think they just turned up out of the blue? They were all surprised to find out you and Noah were here, they called wanting to visit _me_. I never told any of them about you two until I had your permission. Spy shows up looking for you, and _I’m_ who you decide to blame? Not Heavy, not Sniper, not Demo? Not your damn brother? Gabe knows you’re here. Spy knows you have brothers. But, no, you’re mad at _me_.”

Scout had diminished somehow, as her voice rose dangerously. “W-wh...no. I...Miss Pauling--”

She hadn’t actually meant to get angry, but now she couldn’t help it, and tears were prickling in her eyes. “ _God_. Everything I do for you! You and Noah, both, but  _especially_ you. Everything I did to make this place a home-- _our home_ . It’s more than I could have done alone, I _know_ that, and I’m so glad you’re here, but Scout, I swear to god. I know now that I needed you both, but I just wanted a place where I could be safe. Where I wasn’t working all the goddamn time, where I could have some peace and quiet and _no more fighting_. I got so sick of all the stupid, pointless _fighting_.” She sniffled and furiously rubbed the heel of her free hand in her eyes. A little sob escaped in spite of her attempts to stifle it. “You two were the only thing that was ever dangerous about this place.”

He’d backed all the way down, now, looked a little hunted. “...h-hey. I’m sorry. Okay? Listen, I-I…”

Pauling didn’t seem to hear, or if she did, she still had one more thing she wanted to say. A final, tearful outburst. “And on our fucking anniversary! You were a guest here, three years ago. And the man I have to thank for my little haven shows up, a guest at my house, and you try to tear him in half. You had _better_ have a good goddamn reason why, Scout, because...just... _damn it_. I don't care how you feel about the rest of the team, that's your business. But he's my friend.”

Scout was pretty sure he did, but she was really mad. Scary mad, the scary kind of pretty, with her blazing eyes and her syringe in hand, full of something he really didn't want to have to deal with. The worst thing about making Miss Pauling mad was that she _always_ had a good reason. If she was mad at you, then by definition you’d done something wrong. “I...put the needle away? Please? I won’t...I’m sorry. I fucked up, I didn't mean to scare you. Okay?”

Pauling had tears on her cheeks and her hands were shaking. She lowered the syringe, then hesitantly laid it on a side table. With it all the fury seemed to seep out of her and she just looked tired, sad. She pushed her glasses up her forehead, rubbed her reddened eyes. “...what...why would you...why’d you jump him? Scout? Just tell me why. I’m trying really hard to give you the benefit of the doubt here, but it’s hard. It’s really hard, you could've killed him. He could've killed _you_.”

Scout realized that it wasn't obvious. He wondered if Pyro would even know, though Scout was almost certain that he would. He had really hoped Miss Pauling would guess, because he didn't want to say. He dropped his gaze, stared down at the letter, cradled in both his hands now. He ran a thumb over the name on it. It still took him a long time to speak, and it was like he’d forgotten how in the meantime. “...He. Spy. H-he knew. Had to've, that...that’s his goddamn job, ain't it?  He knew ‘bout everything, w-with...with Medic.”

She was just silent, staring. A long, long silence, and all he could hear in the absence of her voice was the ringing in his ears. The seal on the envelope had broken open, a little, when he’d clenched it in his hand. He could see the corner of the letter, his mother’s handwriting. It made him feel sick and dizzy to look at, he shut his eyes, waited an interminably long time for her to speak again. Her voice was soft, concerned, when she did. Closer. “Can you prove it?” she asked, and her hand was on his wrist.

Scout shook his head. “No. I...just...d’you think he w-wouldn't have known? I mean, I'm really askin', an' maybe you'd know better than me. I can't say for sure, but with everything you know ‘bout Spy, d'you really think--God. Aw, God,  w-why’s he _here,_ why’d he have to come here? I-I can’t...I can’t think about the Badlands t’day, I _can’t_. Oh, Christ, you weren't there. You never knew, but it ain't your fault, you didn't...weren't l-livin’ right in the middle of it.  Ain't any way I can see he  _didn't_ know about what...what happened. Most of ‘em I could understand. Me n’ Pyro, nobody really...mostly they all kinda just avoided us. _Spy_ , though. Spy always knew fuckin’ _everything,_ always hated that about him. There had t’be a reason he didn't...N-no one _ever--_ ” He’d run out of words, just like Pyro did, sometimes. Probably for the best, he was right on the edge of babbling. He could probably have forced it, but then it would be like it had been nearly four years ago, when he’d just broken down. He really didn't want to, not with Spy right outside. Mostly he wanted Spy to leave.

“Darling.” Her voice had gotten gentle, her hand on his shoulder, the other carefully taking the letter away, laying it aside so she could twine her fingers through his. At least she wasn't afraid anymore, that was good. “Do you really believe he could have known and not done anything?”

“No one ever did anything,” he repeated, numbly.

Pauling pulled his arms around her, nestled in close for a hug, Wrapped her arms around his waist and rubbed her knuckles gently at the small of his back. Better. Not a lot better, but a bit. “Dearest, you _know_ no one’s going to hurt you here. I wouldn't permit it. Spy...if you really believe he knew and did nothing...well. Oh, sweetheart. There’s no way to know, though, is there?”

Scout shrugged, buried his face in her hair and sighed. “Shit. I dunno. Wish I did. He’s...said somethin’ about my ma. She knew him from way back, guess he’s hangin’ around her again. Fuck, that _bastard_. God, I _hate_ him. I can’t...if he...oh God, I gotta do _something_.”

Miss Pauling bit her lip. “Do you want me to...do you need me to get rid of him?” She put what she hoped was a sufficiently suggestive stress on the words “get rid of him”. She hoped that was enough. She didn't want to say it out loud. Spy had been her friend and colleague.

Scout nodded, and she took it for granted that he knew what he’d agreed to. Kissed him, squeezed his fingers. Retrieved the syringe she’d laid aside. Carefully expelled the contents into the planter of a small ficus in the front hallway. Shook it, drew the plunger and refilled it with air. Stowed it in her sleeve.

What.

“Stay here,” she murmured, and knocked on the door. “Noah? Sweetheart, it’s just me. Scout’s all right. Let me out, please, I need to talk to Spy. Come in, have an eye on Scout for me.”

She slipped out the door. Feeling a little bit like he’d missed something important, Scout noted that she wasn't actually wearing any pants. That wasn't it, though.

Pyro entered, closed the door behind him. Leaned against it and heaved a heavy sigh, looked at Scout for a long few moments, brooding, before he spoke up. “So. Spy. He says he knew Miss Pauling lived here, he’s glad we haven’t killed her. Jesus, Scout, you really went the hell off on him. I think his nose is broken, he’s gonna be mad as hell about that. He, uh. He says your mom sent him. She wanted him to try to get you to come home. I told him...fuck, Scout, I don’t know. Are you okay?”

“Uh. Y-yeah. Umm. Pauling, had...she grabbed a needle, but I…”

Pyro frowned, came over and pulled him into a hug. “God, you’re pale. Did he hurt you?”

“N-no. Fuck. Oh, shit.” _Get rid of him._ “ Pyro, d’you think Spy...d’you think he knew? With M-Medic? I couldn't ever...I never _knew_ , j-just I always needed someone t’blame for all of it, and he always just knew _everything,_ got me the fuckin’ job, an’ all. I couldn't ever f-figure...knew my ma. Oh, _shit_ . Oh fuck, Miss _Pauling._ Oh my god, she...I scared the _fuck_ out of her, oh my god. And my _ma_ and Spy, f-fucking Spy, Jesus. I just...I...”

This was starting to sound hysterical, and the way Pyro’s hands went to Scout’s arms, gently but firmly holding him steady. “Hey. Hey, shh, it’s okay. C’mon man, deep breaths, nothing to lose it over. Okay? It’s only Spy. Probably just Sniper or Demo told him we live here. He’s not...he isn't going to do anything, I won’t let him. Fucking spook, that’s all he is. Creepy motherfucker--ah. Poor choice of words, forget that. Okay? Miss Pauling’s all right, it’s only Spy. Did you ask her to tell him to leave?”

“...said she’d get rid of him,” Scout repeated, half to himself, a little dazed and feeling a sick, creeping dread that he hadn't caught on sooner. That was the important phrase, that was the thing he hadn't thought through. The way she’d said it, the _needle_ , oh _shit._ “ Fuck, oh, _fuck_ , I think I asked her to _kill him_.”

Pyro’s grip tightened slightly as his eyes widened. Then just an exasperated sigh. “Scout, for fuck’s _sake_.” Pyro spun on his heel, yanked the door open. 


	7. worthless

Scout had nearly shoved Pyro against the wall in his bid to get back out onto the porch. The sound of rain crashed against his ears, but he did not hear it; all he perceived was the sight of Pauling with her hand wrapped in Spy’s collar, the tip of the syringe at his throat. He had a balisong pressed against hers. “ _Miss Pauling,_ ” he started, fumbled, froze instead. He’d fucked everything up for everyone around him again. Dimly he registered the smell of burnt bacon floating out the door. “D—don’t, oh God that _ain’t_ what I meant—”

Pyro pushed past him, and froze for what he assumed were the same reasons. “… Christ,” he breathed, and, “Okay, for _fuck’s sake_ , no one needs to kill fucking anyone. Pauling, _down_ , girl—if you even scratch her, Spy—”

Spy’s gaze shot up to him, venomous and vicious. Scout winced. Pyro, though, put his hands as if in surrender. “… Look. _Both_ of you let go of each other. On three, okay? I’m pretty fucking sure you didn’t come here to kill Pauling, right, Spy? On three.”

He counted to three, and thank God, that was enough; Pauling let go her grip, falling back a step, and as soon as she did Scout shot forward and dragged her backwards, holding her firmly against him. Oh, fuck. Fuck.

Spy too stepped back, the balisong still tight in his grip. His face was bloodless, his teeth grit. “… This was a worthless endeavor,” he snapped before anything else could be done. “I should have known. Assaulted twice in five minutes. No. Very well, Scout, you shall have your wish. I shall tell your mother you are dead, perhaps that will allow her to at last move on.”

He turned on his heel to go, and Scout stared after him, mute. His fingers dug into Pauling’s skin; faintly he realized he was shaking. When Pyro boomed, “Now _hold on_ ,” all Scout wanted to do was shrink away back into the house. He’d fucked up, he’d fucked everything up.

Spy went very still. He turned again, to face the three of them, and looked them over. Then he laughed, disbelieving. “You three are astonishing. It is the three of you, isn’t it? A proper _ménage à trois_ , yes? My _God,_ Scout, it would be to her benefit if your mother never learned of this, can you _imagine._ She would be devastated. It was bad enough when you took Pyro as a lover. I never told her that either, to spare her. She’s already the one son gone deviant.”

Pyro had gone absolutely crimson. “That’s got nothing to do with—”

“Hasn’t it?” Spy barked, sneering. He wiped more blood off his face. “I disagree. It is part of the problem, part of the fact that _this_ man is not who his mother wants to see. He is depraved, he is a violent animal. I knew the Badlands would turn him into a killer, I told Evelyn as much when she called me to save her poor little boy. And here we are, and I am bleeding for no reason other than your darling partner cannot control his temper!”

Pyro fell silent, now, lip half-curled in a sneer of his own. Scout could just see his nails digging into his palms. He focused on that, and on the smell of Pauling’s hair, because if he focused on anything else he was reasonably sure he would collapse. His head was spinning. His heart was going too fast.

Now it was Pauling’s turn to dig her fingers into his skin. “Spy, wait—I wasn’t—”

“Oh, _what_? Wasn’t intent on giving me a damn embolism? I beg to differ,” Spy interrupted. He was properly going, now, he was angrier than Scout could ever remember seeing him get. “Should I trust you? _He’s_ holding you, for God’s sake. I have to wonder what he’s done to you, I remember a Miss Pauling who at the very least asked one or two questions before _murdering_ her associates. Are you his lapdog too, now?”

That shut her up, too. Spy was good at that, at last words. He drew himself and looked the three of them over again, clearly revolted. “… Well. I have seen more than enough. Don’t bother reading the letter, Scout. I’m certain you never read any of the hundreds she sent, anyway, ungrateful creature that you are. I will inform your mother that there was a terrible accident, or perhaps that you died doing something _noble_. That would be best for everyone involved, I believe.” He threw on his jacket and unpocketed an umbrella, opening it with a snap that made Scout bite back a frail sort of sound. “Good _day._ ”

And then he left, stalking down the drive toward a dark maroon car. The three of them watched in silence until he had pulled out of the driveway and driven out of sight.

Pauling went sort of slack in Scout’s arms, a weak little sigh leaving her. Pyro rubbed at his eyes.

Scout didn’t think he could move. His ears were ringing, he couldn’t catch his breath. Spy’s words kept snapping at him. Killer. Deviant. Ungrateful. Animal. Worthless.

And then Pyro muttered, “Happy anniversary,” and it was all Scout could do not to sob.


	8. van gogh

Miss Pauling had given Scout pills for anxiety, long ago, and shown him how to use them. How long he needed to wait between doses, that sometimes it was more effective if you were hungry. That sort of thing.

Mostly he managed well enough that he didn’t have to remember all of it. The week after Spy came by, he wouldn’t have bothered even if he could remember. As it was, the pills hardly let him remember anything at all. That was sort of the way he wanted it. He took them one after the other, and he was probably going to die of some kind of overdose.

Their anniversary hadn’t gone very well, needless to say. Pyro and Pauling had made a halfhearted attempt to salvage it after they coaxed Scout out from the attic, to no avail. There’d been muttering of trying again tomorrow, but they’d all known it was a bust.

Scout made himself stupid and slow on pills, just so his racing mind wouldn’t trip and break its neck. Living felt like swimming through tar. He had impressions of cooking. Lots of cooking, all of it easy, simple recipes he didn’t have to pay too much attention to detail with, or the ones he’d made so many times he didn’t have to think about them anymore. Once he could remember Pyro coming into the kitchen and hanging on him, trying to get him to talk to him about … something. No. No thanks, Pyro, and could he let go of Scout’s arm, he needed to get something out of the oven.

It lasted a week. Then he ran out of pills. Miss Pauling said she didn’t have more. When the world came sharply back into focus—too sharply, all jagged glass edges and paper cuts—he went back to that stupid awful fucking barn. He thought about what Spy had said, and about his mother, and about how he’d wound up being someone who hid behind hay bales with his shirt stuffed in his mouth to keep himself quiet while he slashed his arms open.

He got clumsy and careless and desperate. On his third trip to the barn in two days he passed out, and woke up to Miss Pauling and Pyro arguing about something.

“—can’t let him keep doing this. He’ll end up killing himself—”

“I _know_ that, Pauling, _Christ_! I don’t know what you want me to do! What are we supposed to do, keep him on a leash? Get rid of all the knives and razors?” Pyro’s voice. High and thin and slowly approaching hysteria. “I _tried_. The henna only does so much, _I_ can only do so much, and he won’t _talk_ to me—”

Opposite, Pauling’s: ragged, wet-sounding. It was coming from directly over Scout’s head. It occurred to him that he was in her lap. “ _Stop it_ , Noah, I know we can’t just—oh, God. _Shit._ I don’t know.”

They noticed Scout was awake, after that. They said he passed out from blood loss. No one yelled at him, though after they’d changed his bandages and left him to rest he heard the shouting match down the hall. He couldn’t make out the words, but it seemed to last a long time.

Fights over him again. Because of him.

It was kind of like watching a tower collapse in slow-motion, the way he felt his life seem to crumble in front of him. He counted the bricks as they fell, piling up on top of him. His fault Pyro had been gassed. His fault he’d thrown himself on the altar to “spare” Pyro, and all he’d done was fuck him up worse than the gas ever could have on its own. His fault he’d never tried to get help or tried to expose Medic, his fault he wouldn’t even _let_ Pyro try.

His fault Pyro was stuck with him. His fault that he’d broken down in front of Miss Pauling, and now _she_ was stuck with him too. His fault they were constant fretting and fighting over him, because of him. His fault he’d let himself turn into this _thing_ that looked like Adam Cassidy, into someone his brother didn’t recognize, someone his mother would be appalled and disgusted to know.

Deviant, Spy had said. And he was right, wasn’t he. Pyro thought he had it bad because he liked women _and_ men, fuck, at least he had standards. At least Gabe had picked a side and stayed with it, at least he was dedicated to one person. Scout had long ago concluded he could be coerced into being with anyone if they convinced him he loved them. That wasn’t _normal,_ was it, people who weren’t fucking inherently broken weren’t like that, were they? Spy was right. His mother couldn’t ever be allowed to know. And he was right to tell her Adam had died, because he _had_ , he had died the same fucking day he had made his deal with Medic. All he could remember now was the scorn and frustration on Pyro’s face on the day he left for his sister’s, the way he had said Scout wasn’t the person he’d fallen in love with. He was right, because he'd fallen in love with Adam, and Adam was dead and Scout was just wearing his skin.

All his fault. All his fault, because he’d always been too much of a coward to do the thing in the desert with the gun and the vultures, or the thing with the razors and his neck, or the thing with the running truck and the garage.

Pyro and Pauling were still talking an hour later, in sharp, hard tones. Scout’s wrists shot angry throbs of pain through him with every heartbeat, an accusing mantra. _Coward. Coward. Coward. Coward._

From experience he knew four of the painkillers Miss Pauling had left out for him would mostly numb any pain he had. He took eleven, flirting with the idea of taking the whole bottle, and buried his head in the pillows, unable to drown any of it out.

 

* * *

 

At some point he fell asleep. He awoke to Pauling curled against his chest and with Pyro’s face nestled against the crook of his neck, one powerful arm curled possessively around the two of them. It made Scout feel sick.

A few minutes later he _was_ sick, heaving violently. He barely managed to get clear of the two sleepers before he vomited, soiling the foot of the bed. The pair of them were awake and freaking out by the time he had emptied his stomach entirely, bloody drool and bile the only thing left to come up. His gut felt aflame, and no better for Pyro rubbing his back and fussing over him as Pauling got him water and practically forced it down his throat. He wished they’d _stop_ , just let him _be_. All they were doing was making things more drawn-out, like peeling a band-aid off slow. He felt like he was on life support. He wasn’t even thirty, yet, but something heavy and intense within him told him even that was beyond his natural lifespan.

The whole day was more of the same. They waited on him hand and fucking foot, helping him everywhere, bringing him everything. He wanted them to just kick the stupid chair out from under him and go. Then he wouldn’t feel obligated to stay anymore.

Not that he was sure why he felt obligated in the first place. He’d seen them together, plenty of times. Happy, too. They filled those needs they had he couldn’t begin to understand, him with his fragile calm and tame, boring desires. And they didn’t need him for tenderness, they had that on their own, too.

Why the _fuck_ did he think he had any business being near them?

The more he thought about it, the less sense it made. He’d been a means to an end. Pauling knew how to handle Pyro in his rages, Pyro knew all the right things to say to tease Pauling out of her dark, serious moods. Neither of them knew what to do with him, he’d _heard_ them. So they had each other now. That was good. That was great, he was glad for them. Pyro didn’t have to worry about holding Pauling’s hand or kissing her in public, he’d always wanted that.

The point was they were fine without him. Better off, even.

Scout’s wrists hurt all the time. He’d gone deep, he’d not been paying attention. They had taken his hand wraps away this time, and after a few days he didn’t even have the bandages over them anymore. He spent a lot of time counting the scars that circled his wrists, tracing them with his fingers. He was sort of glad they’d taken the wraps away, it meant he couldn’t forget.

A few times they tried to talk to him. Sometimes just one or the other, sometimes together. About what, Scout wasn’t exactly sure. They asked him if he was okay. Sure he was okay. Yeah. Fine. No, really, he was fine. He was feeling better, yeah, thanks. Okay. He just said whatever he figured they wanted to hear, and they went away pretty quickly.

He was really, really tired. He slept a lot. He wasn’t sure how much time passed. All his thoughts kept going in circles, and he put himself into infinite loops of rattling off reasons to himself about not being necessary. None aloud, of course. His partners had started hovering. They still sandwiched Scout between them at night, making him feel suffocated and babied. He was wrong, he realized a while later. _He_ wasn’t obligated to stay. _They_ felt obligated to take care of him. He didn’t care to know how much of their time he’d wasted over the last few years, and longer with Pyro. He was an obligation. An interruption in what otherwise would have been an almost idyllic relationship, surely.

He was a _burden._ He’d always been a burden. Another mouth to feed for his mother, an unruly charge on the team ruining ambushes and dropping intelligence briefcases because he overestimated his own abilities. An invalid for Pyro to take care of.

In retrospect, the only person he’d ever been any use to had been … Medic.

The experiments Medic had performed on him had been insane and inhumane and cruel, but they had all had purpose. Probably he had made huge strides in the field of medicine, because of Scout. He’d probably saved lives with it. Helped people, maybe.

Only now he wasn’t helping anyone, because Miss Pauling had _done_ something to him.

Because of Scout.

It was an inky dusk in mid-June when this last occurred to him, a little after dinner. He didn’t know how long it had been since Spy had turned up on their porch, but the gashes in his wrists had begun to knit. Long enough, anyway, that Pyro had quit checking in on him every hour, and Pauling had stopped following him around. The questions had lessened. He was fine.

Scout was fine. Things were fine. They were fine when he sort of got unsteadily to his feet, out of bed, realizing faintly he wasn’t sure when he’d last showered. He felt greasy and scummy, and even as tired as he was the feeling of filth was suddenly overwhelming, and so off to the shower he went. He kind of just wound up standing in the water, leaning against the side of the stall until it ran cold. While he was in there he noticed the henna coating his arms, layers and layers and _layers_ of it. That was weird, he thought as he touched the hundreds of tight, dark circles that went up to his elbows. He couldn’t remember drawing any of it, but the level of detail would have taken him hours, if not days.

Oh well, he decided.

There was a bottle of something on the bathroom counter when he got out. Scout picked it up as he dried off his hair, looking it over. Aspirin. Full bottle, if the weight was anything to go by. He put it back down, dried off, got dressed. Picked up the bottle again, intending to put it away. Pyro was always leaving shit lying around.

He wasn’t really sure how he got outside with it. Night had fallen, and overhead the sky was _beautiful._ Not a single cloud, just an endless starry sea. The grass under his feet was cool and soft, and the air smelled sweetly of early summer. Who was that artist Pyro liked? Van Gogh, that was it. The night looked like something he would have painted.

There was something else Pyro had told him about Van Gogh, something about the way he’d died. He’d died young, Scout remembered that. No—he’d shot himself. Yes, that was it. Van Gogh wasn’t a coward.

Scout kind of thought he’d been going to the barn again, but the night was so beautiful. He didn’t want to go in there again, all old, rotting wood and dust and bad memories and blood soaked into the dirt. Instead he stopped just outside it, dropping down to sit against the closed doors. From here he could see the moon, waxing gibbous. Somewhere an owl called.

As he popped the lid off of the aspirin bottle, Scout hoped Van Gogh had shot himself under a sky like this.

 

* * *

 

The phone rang. Noah, cleaning the kitchen, stopped, curious. It was damn late. No one called them, or if they did they called at a decent hour anyway. Who the hell was that?

He let it ring five times, waiting to see if Pauling or maybe even Scout would answer it. Neither did. On the sixth, he toweled off his hands and trotted off to the hallway to catch it. “Hello? ... Who’s this? Oh—oh, sorry, of course! It's been a while. Yeah, this is Noah. How're you? ... oh, well. I'm, you know. I'm fine ... yeah. Thanks. So, hey, what's the call for? It's pretty late down there, isn't it?

"...Oh, Scout? He's not ... or, well. No, hang on, let me go find him. He's been in kind of a funk, lately, I bet he'd be glad to talk to you. Just a second."

Noah put the receiver down on top of the counter, letting himself smile a little as he went to go and hunt Scout down. Yeah, this’d make Scout feel better.


	9. Noah

It was dark, but the sky overhead was brilliant, with the kind of clarity that made it seem deep, endless. It was the sort of night that made Noah feel like painting. Like staring up at the sky and just putting on a canvas the way it made him feel, just drenched in beauty. He hadn't thought anything of it when the front door had opened and closed, it was a nice night. It was worth being outdoors. Noah wouldn't even have noticed, wouldn't have set foot outside, if it hadn't been for the phone call. Wouldn't have gone down the dirt path from the house to the barn--the decrepit, half-collapsed, awful old barn--and found Scout slumped against the door of it with a half-empty bottle of what Noah knew was not actually aspirin.  
  
His hair was still damp. He smelled clean, just lightly of soap, of the long shower that Noah had heard him take. And Noah had scrambled to his side, shouted at him, shaken him. Slapped him just once, hard enough to leave a bright red mark on his cheek, probably this would bruise, but nothing. Scout was still breathing, but he wouldn't wake up. And Noah had been here before. Not in this place, but in this moment and the worst and most familiar part of it was the sense of relief. Holding him now, just quiet and calm and peaceful. Noah's cheeks had gotten damp from his own tears and from pressing his face against Scout's forehead, and his chest felt like it was being crushed. Because he'd been here before, and he knew what happened next.  
  
"Why is this the only thing that ever fixes you?"  
  
The words felt like they shattered as soon as they hit the air, thin and weak, half-choked. He was paralyzed, the familiarity of it all catching him by the neck and holding him still despite some deeper voice screaming for him to act. But what would acting do? It was always the same script. When Scout hit the end of his rope and took the first way of offing himself he could find, leaving Pyro to hold him as he slipped away, then to come and find him throwing up in respawn and begging Pyro not to tell Medic.  
  
Except there wasn't respawn, anymore. And there wasn't Medic. And Pyro had been going by Noah again, had been for a long time. Even Scout had started calling him that, sometimes.  
  
Pyro had been forced to watch Scout die over and over, but Scout was immortal. Adam wasn't. Adam Cassidy only got to die once, and this thought came to Noah---Noah Dockter, not Pyro---with a startlingly real, icy sense of finality that terrified him.  
  
If he was honest with himself, Noah was too afraid to keep living without Adam.  
  
It felt so much harder than he thought it should have, gathering Scout into his arms and making for the house as fast as he dared. But the very fact he had begun to move seemed to clear his head, like he was leaving tar behind. He was screaming for Pauling before he even reached the house again, holding Scout close, protectively.  
  
He'd never been able to save Scout. He'd given up on that long ago.  
  
But maybe---maybe---he could save Adam.

* * *

 

The last time Noah had called emergency services it had been just months after everything started with Medic, and Scout had yanked the phone out of his hands. After that they'd taught themselves first-aid, but if Noah was honest with himself, he'd let himself forget most of it within the year. It was often kinder just to put Scout down.

That wasn't an option this time, because when Noah had gotten in the door, Pauling had met him on the threshold and gone to pieces. Well, of course she had. Noah had realized only afterward that she'd thought Scout was dead and not just dying. It was hard to remember that she wasn't used to this, wasn't used to seeing Scout this way. Even in the grip of terror, Noah had still done this hundreds of times before. He'd only thought he would need to hold himself together until he got inside, but at the sight of Pauling falling to her knees Noah had been forced to get a grip on himself. He hadn't wanted to be the cooler head, he'd been relying on Pauling to take control, to know what to do. He realized when she broke down sobbing, that there wasn't anyone else left to do something, it _had_ to be him _._  He couldn't be trusted around Scout, anyway, not to kill him and not to leave fucking drugs around for him to overdose on. So when Pauling managed to pull herself together just long enough to tell him to call an ambulance, Noah had bolted for the phone in the kitchen.

He forgot all about the person on the other end of the line, Scout's friend, a friendship he'd made because he and Noah had only narrowly avoided running over her dog. His mind tried to jump ahead to what would have happened if she hadn't called, but he forced himself to focus. Instead he slammed the phone down into the cradle, ripped it back up again, and dialed.

The ringing seemed to take an eternity. All Noah could think about was his track record with this, his complete, embarrassing inability to keep his boyfriend from killing himself. He'd broken down about it to Pauling, just a few weeks ago, after Scout had nearly bled himself out. The weight had been too heavy and he couldn't bear it any longer on his own.

Pathetic was the only word there had been for it. He'd only had the one glass of wine, but it had been enough to send him crawling off to Pauling in the den. Between frustrated half-sobs and his own stupid voice giving out on him a few times, he told her. He told her about the first time he'd found him dead, hanging in one of Thunder Mountain's tiny barns. About the first time he'd seen Scout collapse, _fuck_ , he didn't even recognize that Pyro as himself now. He told her about the fight they'd had, where Scout ripped Pyro's own shotgun out of his hands and blew himself open with it. All the times he'd jumped off Hightower. The time Scout had thrown himself out of Pyro's car, and how Pyro still had nightmares about that. ("That's why you always wanted him to ride in the middle," Pauling had said softly, stroking his hair as he nodded.)

It wasn't fair, telling her about all this. She didn't need to know. But Noah felt like he was drowning, and there was no one else to tell. He cried himself to sleep on her shoulder, and awoke with a guilty jolt in the morning upon realizing they'd left Scout alone overnight. (Scout hadn't seemed to notice. Scout wasn't noticing much of anything, lately.)

But Scout had never done anything with pills. Scout would never even _touch_ pills, he'd bite his tongue off from pain before he took painkillers. Noah had been absolutely astonished when Pauling managed to talk him into the Valium pill, with its little wax seal. Noah had wished he'd thought of it, but he wasn't as clever as Pauling, and he knew that.

Except Pauling was in the other room crying her eyes out and she'd told him she thought Scout was going to die and the phone was ringing.

Noah only realized he'd started crying too when the voice on the other side of the wires asked him what his emergency was. It was the same emergency it had always been.

"I---I-I. Shit, oh. 'M sorry, I, m-my b---my ... friend, my friend just took a---a bunch of pills. He won't wake up."


	10. Pauling

  
She'd gone cold all over when she'd heard Noah shouting her name, frozen for a moment at the raw note of urgency in his voice. Pauling took the stairs two at a time, stumbling at the bottom in her haste. She recovered her footing, and met Noah coming in the front door. The sight of Scout, ashen pale, limp and still in Noah's arms set her shaking. She had to take a step backward as Noah shouldered past her into the living room, out of breath. Her knees weakening and her vision blurry with sudden tears, Miss Pauling managed to maintain her composure just long enough for Noah to lower the body he carried onto the living room couch and drop to the ground to catch his breath. Then she crumpled to her knees beside Scout, buried her face against his chest and let a raw wail of grief tear out of her.

Noah started and grabbed her shoulder as her fingers twisted in the fabric of Scout’s shirt and she started to sob in earnest. "... _Pauling_. Pauling, Jesus, h-he's not... He wasn't dead. He isn't dead, he can't be, he’s  _breathing_ , he  _was breathing_ , he's still...w-we have to--"

Pauling jerked her head up at this, staring at Noah in shock. Wordlessly, she pressed trembling hands against Scout's chest, feeling its slow, barely perceptible movement, then her fingers to the hollow of his throat, looking for a pulse and finding one, weak and thready. God, but he still  _looked_ \--she shuddered bodily and tried to abandon the thought. Some part of her kicked over into auto-pilot, crisis-response, but inwardly she was still crumbling, still shocked by the sudden conviction of loss. She leaned over him, felt the softness of his breath on her cheek, thumbed one of his eyelids open, then the other, and could barely stand the sight of his eyes, staring and blank, pupils tightly constricted. “Okay,” she murmured, brushing her fingertips across his brow. “Do you know what he took?” she asked numbly, still trying to stifle the part of her that knew Scout was dying.

The bottle that Noah had had the presence of mind to grab was an aspirin bottle. But as he handed it to Pauling he licked his lips and answered shakily, “It’s not what it says--not aspirin, I mean. it’s the painkillers you got me, back when I got that really awful sunburn, a-after the fire that one summer. Vicodin or Percocet, I don’t remember.” He spoke hastily now, hands clasping together anxiously. “God, I just--I didn’t want anyone to know I still had them. Fuck. Neither of you were supposed to find out, you’re allergic to aspirin and Scout won’t take  _anything_ unless you force him to. I had maybe a few dozen. I-I think he took about half of them.”

Pauling’s eyes widened and her expression fell. “ _Noah_.” She said it softly, shocked and dismayed, and then seemed to lose the thread of her voice. She reached over and took Scout’s hand, squeezing his fingers tightly, painfully, maybe trying to get him to react. Her voice wavered and she was crying again, when she managed to speak. “Call an ambulance. I don’t think we can help him, I don’t even know CPR. Oh, god, Noah. I think he really might die."

* * *

 

Noah was on the phone with the 911 dispatcher. She could hear his voice, the way he stammered and dragged some of his syllables. He was on the brink of losing it, and she knew the feeling. Probably she should have been the one to call, but she couldn't bear to leave Scout alone.

Not that anything she could do would matter, now. Maybe the fact that she was here and now, and with Scout as he fell further and further away from her, was proof that nothing she'd done had ever made the slightest bit of difference. Maybe this was the only thing left that would.

A long time ago, she had been willing to offer him this. When it had been a matter of talking him out of drunkenly blowing his face off with a pistol in the barn, she'd been willing to offer him something gentler, and to stay with him, help him through it. She had imagined something like this. Pauling had known it would be kinder to Scout, to let him grow still and quiet and slip away, to stay with him so he wasn't alone, because with all her heart she believed that mattered. She had also known it would be agony to watch him letting go.

Pauling had been a young girl, and she hadn’t been ready for it when her Nan had died. The sick twist of loss and grief had been worse than the death of her parents, because her grandmother had wasted slowly away, eaten up by pain and dementia. She had been ready for her grandfather's death, because she had steeled herself to cause it, and not to let him suffer. So she knew how it felt, to need to say goodbye, and how desperately she wanted not to.

More than anything she wished she could have known how to help him. She'd tried, done her best, but she'd never been in love with someone before Scout. She loved Noah, too, but that had been a choice. She'd _fallen_ in love with Scout, unable to help it. It wasn't a matter of loving either of them more than the other, just differently. It had been Noah who'd helped her work her way through it, talked her out of the fear that went with the falling.

Pauling had realized a long time ago that she loved all the parts of Scout that Noah couldn't, that it took both of them to love every part of him. Now it seemed like the worst of it was that this was what she had loved the most, the deep, secret truth of his nature, that he was broken and fragile and a creature of desperate need. And she'd loved him for it, for needing her. It was the thing she'd never known about herself, that she was just empty of anything if no one needed her.

"I'm sorry," she murmured tearfully, still sat on the floor next to the couch. She was just tall enough to lean over, rest her forehead against his chest and clasp his hand, his fingers limp, dry and cool against hers. On her knees again, pleading with him. Trying to find some way to say all the things that didn't matter and wouldn't make a difference, all the reasons he had to stay. She hoped Scout would hear, but doubted that he could. Pauling had never been good at this, obviously never good enough. What did any of it matter?

Noah cleared his throat awkwardly from the doorway of the living room, and she lifted her head to look at him. His eyes were red-rimmed just the same as she knew hers had to be, but he'd gotten strangely calm, and his voice was steady, if quiet, when he spoke, "They're on their way. Fifteen minutes, probably, we're a long way from town. The dispatcher wanted me to stay on the line, but..." he trailed off, circled around the couch to sit on the floor, to pull her gently into his lap and hold her close. He laid his hand over hers, folding his blunt, heavy fingers around hers and Scout's. "I know I need to be here. If the worst happens, Pauling, I'm glad you're with me. With us. The thing I loved most about you is that you love him better than I ever did. Do. From the very first day we were here, you were just always so much kinder. Thank you."

She shook her head, numbly. Kindness hadn't mattered. Noah kept talking, his fingers stroking her hair. "God, this can't be what ends it. It's just...it's strange to say, but it's just not _like_ him. After everything-- _everything_ I've seen him scrape through, it can't be some stupid handful of Vicodin." He sighed, shakily, and his hand squeezed hers. "Still," he said softly. "Still, if this  _is_  it, maybe it's better that it's this way. I killed him like this, once, on accident. With morphine. I always thought if he ever really wanted to end it--that was how I would have wanted him to go. I wonder if he remembers the time I made him promise he'd take me with him."

Noah lapsed into a long silence in which she could only hear the sound of her own sobbing. Pauling didn't come undone very often, she'd always been proud of how well she dealt with crisis. Even in the barn, even when he'd been drenched with blood and the sight of him had made her feel dizzily sick and horrified, she'd managed not to panic. Somehow this was worse. 

"I don't want him to go," Pauling managed to whisper, and pressed herself against Noah, feeling his strength, his solidity behind her. She felt fragile and small and young, like she was fifteen years old and about to be alone in the world once again. "Not _you_ either. N-Noah. Why would you say that, _why_? I-I know there's more between the two of you, I _know_   I wouldn't be good enough, b-but...but I'm here too, and I don't want to be left alone again. You can't leave me alone, it's not fair. Please, oh, please. Tell me he'll be okay. He has to be okay, I need him. And you. Don't leave, please don't leave me, if he does. I can't lose both of you, I can't. I lost everyone else already, it can't be just me again. I don't know what would happen to me."

"I don't know what I'll do. I'm too much of a coward to kill myself, I know that much. But I'm not sure I could stand it, losing him now."

Pauling couldn't bear how calm he was, though with her face pressed against his chest she could hear the tears in his voice. This had been his Gethsemane long before it had been hers. "I'm sorry I didn't know how to help. I'm sorry I didn't know what to do, I'm sorry it didn't make a difference."

His arms tightened around her, briefly. "It made a difference. I never knew what to do either. But I know that getting him this far took the both of us. He'd have been gone along time ago if it hadn't been for you, and me along with him. It made a difference." Noah's hand left hers, his fingers gently cradling Scout's face. Pauling realized numbly, against the contrast of Noah's fair skin, that Scout's lips were starting to get bluish. "But maybe it's not up to us anymore. Maybe we did everything we could. Can you think of anything else, anything more? Maybe this is how we find out. I think we were always on our way here, because something about him  _has_  to change if he's going to be okay. Maybe this is how it changes. We'll start from scratch, and we'll find another way. We pulled him back from the brink once, you and me. If he pulls through, we're just going to need to try again."

It went unsaid what would happen if he didn't. Pauling didn't think either of them knew. The sound of distant sirens took a long time to fill the anxious silence in which they waited.


	11. Scout

 

He’d … something.

Wait.

What?

Scout’s chest hurt. Scout’s … head hurt, his throat, his …

…

… why was everything so _bright?_

The question floated through his mind distantly, slowly. Mm. Things seemed wrong. There was noise, that took him a while to figure out. He was on something hard and then something warm and giving and then something cold and soft. At some point he thought about trying to open his eyes. Mmn, no. Too hard.

He was so tired.

Seemed like that was all he ever was these days, tired. He had sort of an idea that he hadn’t used to be like this. It was weird and wrong and far-away. Not him, not Scout. Someone else. Was he Scout? He didn’t feel very much like anything right now. Just tired.

Then things were dark again, for an eternity and no time at all. Then they weren’t. One of his eyes was open, he hadn’t opened it. That was weird. So _bright,_ damn it. He wanted the dark. He wanted to sleep. Just … sleep. His chest hurt. It was hard to breathe. Wasn’t he supposed to be scared? Maybe he was. Whoever he was.

Time

passed

maybe. Maybe it didn’t

that was fine too

scout was tired.

…

noise. Sounds. A bang. Loud voices. He didn’t like it. It was okay. He wouldn’t remember.

He … wouldn’t …

[——–]

It was a really _nice_ hospital. Especially for such a small town. Noah took some small consolation in that, that it was nicer than any of the places _he'd_ ever woken up in after overdosing. A private room, even. Warm, pastel paint on the walls, artwork. A big, curtained window overlooking a small, park-like garden. After the stress and panic of the paramedics, the ambulance, the emergency room, things seemed too quiet now. But his chair was comfortable, and the room was nice.

If he paid attention to the room around them, he could pretend Scout wasn't lying in the bed next to him, while a loud, intrusive machine forced air into his lungs, because he wasn't currently capable of breathing on his own. Beyond just the fact that he was almost comatose from the drugs in his system, he was dehydrated and hypovolaemic. An IV line was taped to the back of his hand, dripping in saline to make up for blood he'd lost cutting his wrists, and hadn't recovered even in the weeks since they'd found him in the barn. He just hadn't been taking care of himself, and it had shown, but not more so than now. He looked like he had nearly four years ago, at the end of a half-decade of systematic abuse at the hands of a madman. All hushed and diminished, older and younger at once, with his shadowed eyes and his face grown gaunt again, drawn and weary. Noah hated to think about how he'd used to be so boyishly handsome, with his crooked bucktoothed grin and dimples in his cheeks when he really, really smiled. It felt like a long time since Noah could remember Scout really smiling.

Pauling wasn't around. It was nearly midnight, and the hospital was quiet and empty, but she'd somehow found somewhere else to be. Noah hadn't put it together, until he'd started thinking about Pauling as an excuse not to think about Scout--just how hard it must be for  _her_ to be in a hospital. She'd always been close-mouthed about her family, her history. Noah knew bits and pieces, knew that she'd lost her parents to a car accident as a child, then her grandparents as guardians had both passed away late in her adolescence, long, lingering illnesses in hospitals. He didn't know anything about what had happened to her after that. The more he thought about Pauling, the more he realized how little he really knew about her. He and Pauling had always been content to leave one another to be relative mysteries. That had always been something Scout had been better at, getting close to their darkling little paramour, slipping inside her defenses.

"Just another thing I need you for," Noah murmured, still trying to work up the nerve to reach over and take Scout's hand. It was hard to look at him, nearly impossible to touch him, like this. Too many memories of all the times he'd trusted himself to Noah's mercy. It seemed like talking to him was the only safe thing to do.

"All I can think is how this just isn't like you. Fucking it up like this. And with  _pills_ , sweetheart. You've always hated pills, never trusted them. Even when things were the very, very worst, it got just about impossible to get you to take anything for pain, or stress,  or sleep, or the way you get so damn scared. I never knew why you thought you deserved to hurt, why you wouldn't let me make it easier on you. I was glad you let Pauling talk you into it, with the Valium. I've popped a few of your Valium since Spy showed up and fucking ruined everything. Sometimes it's hard for me too, but never like it's been for you."

Noah cleared his throat, not that he was being heard, but his throat had tightened slightly and he had to push his voice past the lump in it. "God, you've always been so much stronger than me. In the ways that mattered, it was always you. It's funny, it's like it wasn't really real before the ambulance got there. Before there were people whose _job_ it was to save you, the ways I never knew how to. I thought I was ready to let you go, because it used to be that was all I wanted for you. Just quiet and peace and freedom from all the shit you went through. I still don't know why you thought I was worth that, because putting you out of your misery and seeing you dead was the only way I could ever think to thank you."

He managed to draw up his nerves, steeled himself to reach out, through the bars on the side of the bed, and envelop Scout's hand in his own, Scout's slender fingers in his blunt, thick ones, his skin's lightness and Scout's tanned darkness, the discrete points his freckles and the overlapping lines Scout's scars. And--a little looser than it had been, not quite the perfect fit any longer--a gleaming gold ring, set with a deep blue stone. Noah had made a promise, and it was one he meant to keep. "So I'm going to try again. I'm going to try and be better, darling. I'm going to try and be more, try and deserve you, and love you enough that you'll stop hating yourself. We're going to get through this. You're going to come back, and I'm not going to let myself lose you. Darling, I'm sorry I ever let you think you were lost."

Noah squeezed Scout's fingers, then curled himself into the chair, less comfortable by the minute. "Or," he said softly, "that I didn't let you know just how lost  _I'd_ be without you."

[——–]

Scout opened his eyes. Or, he tried. It was hard. Things were too bright.

The first question that came to him was _where am I?_

The next was _where are Pyro and Pauling?_

And the last: _what did I do?_

There was a beeping. There was a wretched smell in the air. Stale, chemical. It was unpleasantly familiar in a way that made his lungs hitch, but only for a moment, because then he realized there was something in his mouth. Something plastic, solid, _God_ , tubes. Was this another nightmare?

… Pyro wasn’t usually in his nightmares. At least, not this close. Pyro was slouched bonelessly in a chair close to the hospital bed Scout abruptly understood he was in.

What the hell had he done? He couldn’t remember. His forearms were caked in red lines. There was an IV in his left arm, dripping something cold into him. Blearily he stared at it, unable to recognize whatever it might be Medic was putting into him this time.

… Wait.

No. Not Medic. _Paramedics._

_They were so rough they roused him out of his stupor, not that he could lift a hand against them. They put him onto something stiff and cold that rolled and clanged, pulled something heavy over him. There was something over his face. He couldn’t open his eyes all the way, but the little he did manage showed up first the grim face of a strange woman, and then the flash of pink-white-gold he’d associated so much of his life to in the last decade._

_Underwater noises. Scout didn’t want any of it. There was a sharp, nasty pinch inside his left elbow, and Scout decided it was time to stop being there._

“… Ambulance,” he mumbled aloud, the word slurred and ugly in his mouth. Ambulance, paramedics, hospital. What the fuck had he done to put himself in the hospital?

… What had been so bad that his partners would _take_ him to one?

Scout let the question sit limply in his mind as he peered around the too-bright room. Pyro was sleeping. Pauling wasn’t in sight. Just about everything on him hurt, and the air smelled like … antiseptic, that’s what it was.

He tried to brace himself for the panic he knew would come. It didn’t work, by virtue of the panic never arriving. Medic wasn’t here, he reminded himself. He hadn’t even seen Medic in almost five years. And Medic’s operating rooms had certainly never looked like this, clean and white and with hospital beds that had bright blue sheets.

Medic had nothing to do with this. Nothing at all.

That was the only coherent thought Scout managed to hang onto as he slipped back into unconsciousness, falling away into the grip of darkness again.

[------]

There wasn't anything left to do. She'd done everything. The bills were taken care of. All the doctors had been spoken to. She had had gift baskets arranged for delivery to every department of the hospital, and personally thanked the two paramedics who had shown up at the house. She had called Gil, made sure her chickens would be looked after.  
  
Noah had been sent to the room she'd rented at the hotel in town, to get some proper sleep. Getting him out of the hospital room had felt sort of brutal. He had mostly worn himself out with crying, and his voice cracked every few minutes, and worst when the idea of leaving Scout was presented. He seemed to have been waiting for her to come back so he could break down.

"What if he dies?" he'd said desperately. "What if he dies and I'm not here? Oh my God. I can't."  
  
"He isn't going to die," Pauling said, stroking Noah's hair. "I've talked to all the doctors, he's stable. They took him off the ventilator, he's just on oxygen now. He's coming out of it. None of them think he's going to get worse."  
  
"What if they're _wrong_? I can't, I can't leave him again, I always f-fucking _left_!" Noah buried his face in his hands. And after a few seconds' silence, raggedly: "He came out of it for a couple of minutes before. After they took that damn tube out of his throat. Just ... completely loopy. He kept saying his mom thinks he's dead and just, just falling apart over it. About how he can't fix it. Fuck. I should have stopped Spy, I should've _killed_ him---I should have killed _Medic_ , this is _all my fault_ \---"  
  
He fell silent when Pauling caught his chin in her fingers, making him look at her. "Stop it," she told him, gentle but with no room left for argument. "It's as much my fault if it's anyone's, but we aren't going to get anywhere if we sit around blaming ourselves."  
  
Noah was exhausted like she'd never seen him be before. Exhausted like Scout had been at the beginning of all this, she thought, but in a different way. He needed much more than just sleep. All the composure he’d managed when she’d been falling apart had been worn out of him, by the stress of the drive into town, the emergency room, the waiting. She pressed the keys to her truck into his hand, and talked to him softly, until finally he agreed to go.  
  
Then he was gone, and now---about three in the morning---there was nowhere else to be but sitting by the bedside in the private hospital room.

Her grandfather had been the last person she'd known who had really wanted to die. And it had been a room like this one, in a hospital in a small town. And with his children keeping vigil outside the door. His real children, the two sons and the daughter who he had remaining, Pauling's uncles and aunts. They'd been the ones to argue about how much should be done to keep him alive. He'd only been sixty, a man of good health and good habits, who by all rights could have seen eighty, if his mind hadn't started to leave him, hadn't landed him in the hospital, where the doctors had found the beginnings of the same cancer that had killed her grandmother. None of them would have done it, what Pauling had promised to do. Fifteen years old, only ten years worth of her grandfather's good sense to her name, and the promise that she would do what was needed. How she had needed to undo all the monitors, turn them off so the nurses wouldn't hear and come running. How she had kissed his forehead and said her secret goodbyes, and known she was doing the right thing, because she had been asked to do it by a good and righteous man. How she'd pressed a pillow over his face and how it had been easy to smother him, and how she'd been caught, and taken away, locked away from the world in an asylum for two years, perfectly sane and desperately sorry.

It was hard not to think about it.

She'd wound up cradling Scout's hand in her own and gently running her fingertips over the scars on his wrists, palms, forearms. Old and new. If she could think about him, just about Scout and everything she loved about him, and no one and nothing else, then she could manage not to think of the last time she'd sat with someone in a hospital room like this one, with someone who wanted to die.

It was very, very hard, because they were similar, in so many ways that she hadn't thought of before now. Scout and her long dead grandfather, the last parent she'd had, the last man she'd loved with all her heart, and the first man she'd killed. Both kind and gentle, both truly good at heart. Both ferocious in the way they loved her, both in awe of her own quiet ferocity and strength. Both so deeply capable of love. Both trusting her with their vulnerability, the truth of their failing strength, the last things in the world that they wanted, to be spared from suffering by someone they loved and trusted. 

Pauling hadn't expected to dread the moment when he would finally wake up, really wake up. Not the brief flickers to the surface of awareness that had happened a few times since he'd been at the hospital, but awake, really awake. Because she didn't know what she would say, and worse still, didn’t know what _he_ would. If he would be disappointed by the fact that he'd failed. If he'd ask her to do the thing she'd promised to, long ago, and know that she couldn't deny him.

Noah had done it for him. Hundreds of times. Pauling would only have to do it once. And more than anything, she didn't want to. She didn't want him to wake up, and ask her to keep a promise she wished she hadn't made.

But here she was. And if she was honest with herself she hoped he wouldn't, not yet. At least not until the sun rose.  
  
[--------]  
  
It was finally dark. The lights were off, the blinds over the window had been drawn. As Scout dimly became aware that he was no longer unconscious, he could catch the faintest threads of light beading through the blinds' edges. Sunset. Sunset? Sunrise? Did it matter?  
  
It hurt his eyes either way. He tried to turn his face away and found his head to be impossibly heavy. The effort it took to move at all was titanic.  
  
Oh. Pauling.  
  
No Pyro, just Pauling, her fingers tracing and retracing the scars on his palm, his wrist, his forearm. Gentle enough that it didn't hurt when her fingertips brushed over the lines that were still fresh and raw and red. It felt like he watched her for a long time, before her fingers stopped, hesitantly slipping into his palm, and squeezing his hand gently, small and warm. She was watching him. "Hey," she murmured. "Oh, dearest. Can you hear me, sweetheart?"  
  
No. Not really. Scout’s fingers twitched without him meaning for them to, and she laid her other hand on top of his.  
  
"Scout? Sweetheart, I don't know if you're hearing me, but you're all right. We're at a hospital, but it's all right. Noah and I have been here the whole time, I promise. And we'll go home soon. Just as soon as they know you're going to be okay, we'll go home. I know you don't like it here."  
  
Hnn. Home. That flicked some switch in Scout's fogged-over brain, made his eyes try to focus. Didn't work. Fine. "Home," he repeated.  
  
The pressure on his fingers got tighter. "Yeah. As soon as we can, I promise. Um. Noah's sleeping, I had to get him a hotel. But we haven't left you alone, one of us has always been in the room. No one did anything we didn't see."  
  
Oh. That was nice. In the back of his mind something scratched, flickered, tried to burst. Something old and afraid that kind of he thought used to be much bigger, but mostly it didn't seem very important anymore. It was nice they'd stayed, but probably they hadn't needed to, he thought. He had a distant sort of idea that this was supposed to be very important information, but he kind of just ... didn't care.  
  
Scout blinked, slow and heavy. Swallowed. His mouth was horribly dry. Had there been a tube in it at some point? Was that just a old memory? Talking hurt. "I wanna go home."  
  
"I know, sweetheart, we will."  
  
"No, I ..."  
  
He knew what he wanted. He wanted smoggy skies and filthy streets and buildings crammed together, mazed with dead-end alleyways and fallen fire escapes. Constant noise, cranky drivers. His brothers. His mother.  
  
Home.  
  
"... want to go home," Scout finished lamely. He heard Pauling say something after that, but he had no idea what.  
  
Then he was gone again.


	12. dawn

The sun was just beginning to rise outside as Noah ducked into the hospital lobby. He’d slept, almost three hours of respite from the hospital room and its quiet tension, and he _almost_ felt horribly guilty about it. But it had been necessary, because he’d been coming apart at the seams, and now he’d steadied, calmed down again. Pauling had the room number in case anything happened, and though he’d spent the few long minutes it had taken him to fall asleep waiting for it, no phone call had jolted him away from the edge of sleep. He’d dropped off quickly and slept more easily than he had any right to, the alarm clock in the room set to wake him just before sunrise.

So Noah had woken up, showered and shaved, and almost felt better. Almost felt a _lot_ better, actually, better than he had any right to feel, with his partner almost having died the night previous. A strange conviction had settled in the heart of him. The world seemed a little bit brighter, and he was on the very edge of knowing why. It had a lot to do with what had _almost_ happened, but hadn’t actually.

There was a lot of hope that hinged on the almost.

Noah even had a brilliant, cheerful smile for the nurse at the front desk, who sent him onward into the hospital, up to the third floor, and the only private room in the place. Something had changed.

He knocked lightly on the door and entered without waiting for an answer. It was still dark, the lights still dimmed, the blinds still drawn. Pauling had moved, sitting on the bed instead of the chair, and she lifted her face when Noah opened the door. She looked utterly worn out, and Noah crossed the room briskly, taking her hand to pull her to her feet and gathering her into a tight, secure embrace. Scout, by all appearances, was still dead to the world. Noah was getting a little tired of this, but Pauling needed his attention first. That had been another promise he’d made himself. To be kinder to Scout, and to be stronger for Pauling. He’d gone running to her with his heartaches all too often, it was time he returned the favour. Sometimes Pauling needed to be soft and small and frightened.

This was one of those times, and she wilted against his chest with a sniffle and a sigh, burying her face in his shirt and leaning into him. Pauling never seemed tinier than when she was trying to get her arms around all of Noah, the broadness of his chest and shoulders made her seem much smaller than she really was.

“I don’t know why this is so exhausting,” she murmured, with another tremulous sigh. “I’ve just been sitting here. I just…I feel…”

“That’s exactly why,” Noah answered gently, and stroked her hair, kissed her forehead. “Just sitting here and feeling all of it. The same thing happened to me. It’s like having everything you’ve ever felt about him wrung out, like you’re a wet rag. And you’ve been up all night and after all that stress, it’s no wonder you’re tired.”

Pauling nodded, rubbed at her eyes and sat back down on the bed as Noah let her go. She pushed her glasses up on her forehead, her eyes were red-rimmed and tired. “I just feel sick. I can’t believe I didn’t see this coming. God, after everything he’s been through. I know I’ll never really understand, but I always at least tried…I just tried to make things easier for you. For both of you. Even after everything, as much as I love him-- _we_ love him--he still wanted to die. I don’t know what else I should’ve done.”

Noah kissed her again, and kept kissing her, because he could beat her at her own game, be kinder and gentler and sweeter than she was any day. “You’ve done more than enough. We wouldn’t have made it this far without you, you’ve held both of us together more times than I can even count. This is where we are now, and that’s okay. I’m taking you back to the hotel after this, poor thing.”

“Okay.” Her lack of an argument seemed to indicate just how tired she was, though she reached out to take Scout’s hand again, weaving her fingers through his. Not quite ready to leave. “After what?”

Noah circled around to the other side, sat across from her. Reached out to cradle Scout’s face in his hand—no longer tentative, no longer afraid to touch him. No longer afraid of what Pyro’s hands had done, long, long ago. Pyro was long gone, and it was time to stop being afraid he was coming back. “We need to talk. All of three of us, but for now just you and me. Because he should be dead. If he wanted to die, he _would_ be dead. If Scout wanted to be dead, he’d have put a gun in his mouth and blown out the back of his skull. He knows how. He’s done it before.”

Pauling was probably one of the only people in the world who he could have talked to in such explicit terms without seeing her flinch. But she was looking at him doubtfully now, and chewing her lower lip. “I’m not sure I see your point. I don’t…it’s not that I don’t believe you. God knows, I’ve seen him at that point. After you left, he went out to the barn with a fifth of scotch and a handgun, and he was right on the edge of it. I really do think he would have shot himself then, but this—I’m not sure it’s any different. Half a bottle of  Vicodin isn't nothing, Noah—”

Now he was hitting his stride, he’d figured something out and he shook his head. “Vicodin he thought was aspirin. Right after he cut his wrists in the barn that last time, and you gave him some painkillers? I bet anything that’s what he thought he was in for. It’s the least reliable way in the world he could have picked to kill himself, and it’s just not _like him_. I’m telling you, he didn’t want to die.” Noah took a deep breath. “I think…I think he just needed things to change and he didn’t know what else to do. So I think we need to do something about that. I don't know what, that's what we have to talk about, but we've got to do _something_.”

He was sorry to have brought up the barn. The memory of it, bloody and grim, one of the only things in the world that could really rattle Pauling. She'd paled slightly, Noah could tell she was thinking of it, replaying it in her head. “I thought it was over, when he cut his wrists in the barn. God. That was just about the worst day of my life—all that blood and—and him just lying in the dirt. I really thought he'd..." She shuddered and her voice faltered and failed her. Pauling’s fingers had found the scars on Scout’s wrists again. Her hand tightened involuntarily and her voice came back, hardened. “That _fucking_ barn, why do we even _have_ a barn? It’s nearly killed all three of us, you think we’d have fucking well learned.”

Noah grinned, in spite of himself. Pauling didn’t _really_ swear often, but it was one of his favourite things in the world when she did. “You should have let me burn it down. Spared us a lot of heartache.”

Pauling was silent for a long few moments. “I _should_ let you burn it down,” she mused, half to herself. “You did half the job already, nearly killed yourself, and Scout, and _me,_ if I’d had to go in after you two. Nothing good has _ever_ happened in the barn. You said we need to do something. Well, let's do that. Burn it. Let’s burn it.”

Pyro was maybe not quite gone yet, because Noah’s palms had started sweating, his mouth had gotten dry. “…Pauling, you really can’t joke about that kind of thing with me.”

“I’m not. Burn the barn down.” She fell silent again, and when she spoke, her voice had grown soft, speculative. “He said he wants to go home,” she murmured softly, and looked up, over at Noah with a faint smile. “Where do you think home would be, if we didn’t have the farmhouse to go back to? What if we just burned it all? Where would home be then?”

Noah could see it in his head, much as he wanted not to. Burning, burning _everything_ . The whole barn, the whole _house._ The barn was a firetrap already. A little kerosene, a little gas, the house would be too. He didn’t even want to try and talk her out of it, couldn’t even access all the reasons not to do it. There weren’t any reasons not to do it. She was speaking right into the heart of him. Still, some semi-rational voice tried to make the case against it, but when he spoke he didn’t feel like he was the one talking. “…we…uh. Hhm. There’s laws. About this kind of thing. I don’t know what they are, here, but I used to know what the laws are about fire. I can find out. I don’t think it would be arson. It…I mean, you’re not going to try and claim insurance on it, I don’t think it would be fraud. We…shit. _Shit_ , Pauling. It’s your _house_. We can’t burn it.”

“It’s _our_ house. Our home. We can do whatever we want with it. I want to burn it. I want to burn it all down and start over.” She was getting excited now, and not just by the prospect of a massive, beautiful pyre, to burn down all their memories of the past five years. “A new place. Remember how much better he got, when it was new? He was a wreck and then he wasn’t, because he got _better_ . We had so much work to do, so much to keep busy with. We were all just somewhere new, figuring everything out, figuring each _other_ out. Everything was just _fresh_ . Somewhere like that—anywhere! We could go _anywhere_ , do anything. He needs things to change. Let’s change them. It’s gotten a bit tired, hasn’t it? Poor old farmhouse. A fire would liven it right up. What do you think?”

Noah had to swallow, his mouth had gotten uncomfortably moist. Literally almost drooling at the idea. “You _know_ what I think. Scout though. Scout would _never_ …”

Pauling shrugged, her green eyes gleaming. “We won’t know until we ask him. I bet anything you could talk him into it. He’s got to wake up soon, you said the three of us need to talk. So let’s talk about it. If he says yes, let’s do it. We’ll do it.”

Well, now Noah was gone. Pyro was back. "Let's do it," he echoed. And grinned. Grinned like he had no right to, sitting next to someone he loved, in the sort of state that he was, the way he’d been almost but not quite gone. Pyro could fix that.

“Open the blinds,” Pyro instructed, licking his lips, and shook out his free hand as Pauling obliged, loosening his fingers. He hadn't realized he'd been clenching his hands. Early morning daylight flooded the room, dawn had crept up behind him and now it shone brilliance through the window, all pink and white and golden. A beautiful day, with fire on the horizon. Scout even looked a little better, a little less gaunt and a little less drawn. He winced a little in the light, turned his head away in protest, whimpered just very slightly.

And Pyro slapped him solidly across the mouth.

“Good morning, sunshine!” he crooned, at a pair of bewildered, bleary blue eyes, slightly unfocused. “Time to have a _talk_.”

* * *

Things had been dark and that had been fine.

And then things were blurry and bright and _hurt_ , and Scout sputtered on his own dry tongue as he lurched back into wakefulness.

" _Noah_! Oh my God, what the _hell—_ "

"He's fine," Scout heard Noah say, and there was a strange undercurrent to his voice. It was bright, too, it had a spark in it. Were the blinds open? _Shit_. "He's going to be just _fine_ , we all are.”

He wasn't fine, he felt like hell and his face stung. Groggily, he touched his cheek. Noah was sitting on the bed, watching him. Grinning. Scout tried to swallow and half-gagged. "What— _ow._ Did you _hit_ me? Wh...why? Why the hell...?"

Now Noah reached out and stroked his sore cheek, and for a moment he took on a slightly conflicted expression. It vanished just as quick, and then he was absolutely beaming once more. "Hi, darling. Yes. I slapped you. Again. It didn’t work the first time. I probably shouldn't have, I'm sorry."

"You— _what_?"

Pyro’s hand caught his jaw, and his thumb had gone to Scout’s lips, gently hushing him. "Shh, don’t think too hard, sweetheart. You’ll strain something. Let me explain. Now, it’s very simple. How do you feel about burning our house down? It’s a great idea, isn’t it?"

That didn’t explain anything, was not simple, and was, actually, a _terrible_ idea. Scout gaped at him stupidly, wholly unable to process so much conflicting information at once. Ever the intermediary, Pauling intervened. "Noah, dearest, shut up. And don’t _hit_ him again, you absolute beast. Calm down and stop being horrible, or we’re not even going to discuss it. Is that clear? Scout. Honey? Do you know where you are?" Pauling was sitting on the opposite side of the bed. She seemed different, too. Like her eyes were greener. "Do you remember what happened?"

Not especially. He had bits and pieces of it, he remembered taking a shower. He remembered thinking Noah was a fucking slob. He remembered something about Van Gogh. As down as he got about himself, sometimes, and especially as hard as he’d been on himself over the last few months, Scout knew he wasn’t stupid.

Except when he really, _really_ was.

And Van Gogh. There was only one thing he ever remembered about Van Gogh, and it was the fact that he’d shot himself in the fucking stomach, and it made him feel sick and awful inside, to add it all up. The IV in his arm, the way his head ached and his mouth was dry and everything sort of hurt. The hospital. This was a hospital, the one in town, he thought. Staring a little distantly out the window, he could see the spire of the church, a silver cross at the peak of it bright against the dawn-lit sky.

He felt Pauling clasp his hand in both her own, and Pyro had put a hand on his shoulder, warm and strong and steady in a way that made him realize he was shaking. "Oh, Jesus. Christ. N-no. No, I ain't sure what it was. I don't...I can't remember." He swallowed hard, hating himself, and managing to force his voice out, past the tightening knot in his throat, "But it musta been just real fuckin' stupid because that is exactly the kind of idiotic shit I do. Oh God, it was _bad_ , wasn’t it? It was real fucking bad ‘cuz I gotta goddamn _thing_ in my nose an’ I feel like shit, an’ I can’t remember anything but I swear I didn’t mean it. Okay? I didn’t--I wasn’t right. I got real fucked up an’ it got outta hand, an’ I’m sorry. Fuck, whatever it was, I swear I’m sorry."

The beat of silence seemed longer than it actually was, and Scout couldn’t help but imagine it was filled with the endless frustration he caused them both, the two people he loved more than anyone else in the world. “...a-are you mad? I’m sorry. What happened?”

Pauling told him. He was in a hospital, the one in town. She told him that he'd taken a bunch of painkillers Noah had been hiding in an aspirin bottle. (Noah had the decency to look suitably apologetic about this, but it wasn’t long before the slightly manic grin resurfaced.) They told him the doctors had said he would survive it-- _had_ survived it, and that it probably would have been worse if it had been aspirin. They told him they loved him, and that no one was mad.

And then Pauling asked, "Do you remember telling me you want to go home, sweetheart?"

"I ... I think so. Maybe. It’s all kinda—" he trailed off and bit his lip, remembering and not wanting to.

Because he remembered not meaning home the way Pauling thought he had, because he’d meant Boston. He’d meant his Ma’s house, which had usually been less of a house and more of an apartment, with the rusty old fire escapes and the noisy neighbors. Once or twice it had been a house, but usually apartments. It wasn't just one place, but an amalgam of memories of a lot of places, because there'd been a lot of them, and they all blurred and blended together. A grey-green house on the outside, with a blue door, inside the interior of a fourth floor walk-up that looked out over the back alley where his brothers had taught him to play street hockey. The kitchen from that one place they'd only been for a few months when he was in high school, over the laundromat, but which he remembered best because it had been where his ma had taught him to cook. But mostly just Boston. Concrete and grime and smog and sirens and  _people_ , the white noise of traffic and industry and _life_. Some deep down part of his brain had been left intact, untouched by whatever the fuck he'd swallowed a handful of, and it was the part that wanted desperately to go home. But that hadn’t been what Pauling meant. Except—

"Do you still want that?" she asked, taking his fingers in hers. Noah had taken to stroking his hair. "To go home? Not our home, I mean. Yours." When he stared at her blankly, she prompted, "Boston."

A wave of something rushed over him. Nerves, panic, something, but before it could take hold Noah spoke. "Your mom doesn't think you're dead, love," he said, gentle again, but still with that brightness to him, sunlight in his golden curls like a halo. "I've ... I never told either of you, but I've been ... sending her letters. For years, honey, ever since we left the team. Just to let her know you're still around."

Scout stared at him. Noah smiled, carefully. "No return address, nothing like that. She doesn't even know my name, or Pauling's. And I only sent the pictures that got your best side. I just thought ... well. It was selfish of me. I just wanted her to know that someone was looking after you. My parents didn't care what happened to me, but your mother did, I know she did. I only wanted to help." He grimaced, now. "I just hope they had more weight than anything Spy told her."

"... you been doin' that for me?" Scout said, again blank, again trying to catch up with what was happening. He thought he was maybe supposed to be angry at the news. He wasn't. "That ... Jesus, Pyro. Noah."

"I'm sorry."

"N, no, no no, it ..." Scout took his one free hand and rubbed at his eyes with it, exhaling hard. "It's okay. I think it's okay. Fuckin' hell, I feel like shit. Aw, Christ, this is gonna catch up with me, it's all gonna hit me in like six hours an' I'm gonna be a mess. What the hell...an’ you were sayin' somethin’ about burnin' the house down? ...shit, I didn't burn the house down, did I?"

That dragged the smile back to the surface. "Pauling's idea, not mine," Noah said first, as if to excuse himself. "You didn't, but _we_ should. Just, we should burn it down, all of it. Start over. Somewhere else, somewhere new."

"Somewhere without blood on it," Pauling added, drawing her legs up onto the bed. "I just said we should burn that awful barn down, first, but I really think we could just set fire to all of it. Well, most of it, I'm not going to kill my chickens. But we could do it. I've got savings, and you two are never going to run out of money."

"... burn it down," Scout echoed again. The sun was well up, now, spilling over the blue sheets of the hospital bed. It was a nice blue, a cheery, bright color, like the hydrangeas his mother had loved when he was a kid. Like the sky. "Just burn it down and—okay but where'd we go?"

"Anywhere," Pauling said. "Boston. New Orleans. Overseas somewhere, Europe. Wales, I've always wanted to go there. California."

"I don't want to go to California, I'll never be able to go outside," Noah said.

"Oh, we wouldn't have to _live_ there. We could be vagabonds. Live in a van. Hippies."

" _Only_ if I get to paint the van."

"You'd put something awful on it, you'd put Campbell's soup cans on the side."

"If you _keep on whining_ about Warhol I _will_."

They were off, bickering. The Warhol argument again, the one they’d had before, probably a dozen times. The one that drove him a little crazy, but also that he couldn't help grinning when they had, because the pair of them never remembered whose side of it was whose. Round and round about pop art and its validity. It all felt very surreal to Scout, not at all what he had thought might happen after something like this. Jesus. He'd tried to kill himself. He'd tried to do it with _pills_ , when they had guns and rope and razors and rat poison in the house.

Before he knew what he was going to say, Scout said, "Let's do it."

Both his partners look at him. Scout glanced between them, shrugging, adjusting his grip on Pauling's fingers. "Burn it the fuck down. Yeah. Why not?"

"... Really?" Noah said, voice muted.

"Don't even fuckin' tell me you ain't already fuckin' hard over the idea, Pyro."

Pauling burst out laughing, and Noah grinned, not denying it.

The sun was out. Scout's wrists hurt, his stomach and chest hurt, and his back was sore from being propped up all night. But he had Noah to his right and Pauling to his left, and they were going to burn their house down.

He didn't even realize he was smiling until he had to stop for first one and then the other to lean in and kiss him.


	13. no harm

So. A change of clothes, a thoroughly unwarranted wheelchair ride out of the hospital, breakfast at a diner around the corner, and a minor emotional breakdown in the parking lot, because Scout _had_ tried to kill himself and there were bound to be aftershocks, tremors of anguish and guilt and regret for what he’d put Noah and Pauling through. Then home. Home, to curl up and recover, and to sort out the aftermath. The farmhouse, the home they’d made together. The one they’d decided to burn down.

Initially he’d chalked it up to still being a little hazy and remembering wrong, but apparently that hadn’t been something Scout had imagined. Noah and Pauling, grinning at him, and proposing that they burn down their house, the only home they had. They really _had_ been serious about that.

And it was an insane idea. So Scout gave them plenty of opportunities to take it back, to admit that they weren’t serious, because of course they weren’t. They couldn’t be _serious._

Sitting on the porch with Noah a few days after he’d gotten back from the hospital. Leaning against his chest and enjoying the soft sound of rain and distant rumble of a late afternoon storm, Scout had suggested that maybe it was a bit much, burning the house down. It was a really nice house.

No, Noah had answered, while he painstakingly whorled and teased lines of brilliant red henna in the spaces between the black ink on Scout’s forearm, it was a perfectly measured and reasonable response. He’d already started clearing out the barn, getting it ready, getting rid of all the stuff that would be hazardous to burn, making sure it would be a nice, _clean_ fire.

Of course this was exactly what a pyromaniac _would_ say.

Miss Pauling, though. Hand in hand with her, on an early evening walk through the old field behind the house, gathering wildflowers. She’d always loved flowers, there were vases and bowls of them all over the house, bright and cheerful. The whole house was bright and cheerful, bought and paid for. Scout had tried to remind her; she’d only _just_ paid the house off. It was hers, really hers, wasn’t it a terrible waste?

No, she’d just laughed and reached up on tiptoe, to fling a chain of late summer daisies around his neck and then thread her arm through his, it was her house and she could do what she wanted with it.

Back to Pyro, then. Noah. Scout felt a little weird about it, calling him Noah, but it was what he wanted. Maybe it had always been what he’d wanted. What had Scout ever even known about what Noah wanted, really. Noah had always just wanted him to be safe, to stop hurting, to be _okay_ . Noah was working on being less of a jackass, it was about time Scout started working on being okay. He could be okay. They didn’t _need_ to burn the house down.

No, according to Noah, they really, _really_ did.

There was still part of Noah that was always going to be Pyro, and Pyro was crazy where fire was concerned. Pauling had to listen to reason eventually, and he’d caught her in the den--making the sort of arrangements that were necessary to burn a house down--and told her, _really_ , that it wasn’t necessary. Especially not for his sake. They really, _really_ did _not_ need to burn the house down.

No, she agreed, they didn’t _need_ to, and strictly speaking it wasn’t for his sake. But they _wanted_ to, both of them did. A fresh start. Something big and grand to celebrate the fact that they’d been together for four years, that things had been bad but were getting better, that they all loved one another more than ever, and that home was wherever they made it.

That got to the heart of it, and Scout finally admitted the thing he’d been trying not to say, about home, and what it meant to go there. Because what if maybe he _wasn’t_ ready to go back to Boston? Not when he really thought about it, the thought of how his mother would look at him still made him seize up inside and feel cold all over. He still couldn’t and he was sorry and said so. He hoped they weren’t disappointed, hoped he wasn’t letting them down.

Of course not. But they still wanted to burn the house down.

And, finally convinced that he wasn’t the reason--or at least not the _only_ reason--Scout agreed. And then things _really_ got serious.

* * *

If he thought about it too hard, Scout knew, he'd start having second thoughts. (This was one of those things he'd discovered about getting older; the act of second-guessing himself had been blatantly missing from his youth.) So, naturally, he just ... wasn't thinking about it too hard. Thinking about things too hard was usually what sent him into the kind of self-destructive spirals that had made them decide to burn the house down in the first place.

Two weeks had passed as if in a matter of minutes, and Scout had wrists red with the henna that Noah had painstakingly whorled and teased over them two days prior. It was the latest in a string of seemingly random acts of kindness, one that included gifts of hard-to-find spices and ingredients for his cooking, and the kinds of backrubs only someone built like Noah could give, and, once, a ridiculously indulgent trip down the coast to LA, because Noah had gotten tickets to a ball game. It had been just the two of them, and it had been the sort of trip that left Scout sore from walking and laughing and from getting into a fight when Noah kissed him full on the mouth in broad daylight. They had both gone home with nothing worse than blacked eyes and busted lips, but grinning enough that Pauling only raised an eyebrow and let them be.

It was an ongoing apology on Noah's part, Scout knew, though nothing of the sort had been said. It felt a little strange, but not in a bad way.

Pauling seemed not to feel she had anything to apologize for, per se, but in her halting, slightly awkward way, she’d been trying to be clearer about her feelings. It had taken Scout a long time, mostly because he had always sort of had it in his head that Miss Pauling was good at everything, to realize that she really wasn’t any good at expressing the way she felt. Not about important things, not in the way that Noah did, with big symbolic gestures and the sort of deep, serious statements he made about love. With Pauling it was smaller, more subtle, a hundred tiny things, scattered from the beginning of the day to the end. Her pet names, her gentle touches and stolen kisses, her smiles. It had apparently taken something just this dire, apparently it really had to be life or death, before Pauling could muster the ability to say just how much she loved him, needed him, how lost she would be if he ever left.

Before, the constant hovering and affection had chafed, made Scout feel like he was being smothered. Giving into it, and responding in kind just made life a lot better generally.

Just after he'd been released from the hospital, the three of them had agreed no one ought to be going to the barn on their own. Pauling simply didn't like it, Noah had decided it was haunted, and no one put to words exactly why Scout shouldn't be going there. Noah had dragged them both down to the barn, and proudly shown off the stockpile of kerosene he’d been amassing. He’d turned the barn into a proper firetrap, and made it firmly, profoundly clear that no one was allowed through the door without him from this point on. He’d been halfway stern and halfway possessive when he’d said so, and there’d been a bit of a maniac glint in his eyes when he swung the barn doors closed behind him. It was no great loss.

So in lieu of the barn, when he did need to get away by himself, Scout had started going to the chicken coop.

He wished he'd done this to start with. He’d gotten used to the chickens, in the time that they’d had them, moved them out of the category of “all birds are terrible” into a column of their own headed “except chickens are all right”. The chickens did not seem to remember his stunt with the gun, and he'd fed them for Pauling often enough that their only reaction to him was excited swarming, hopping up onto his legs when he found a clean place to sit with them. They were too damn busy for him to dwell on much beyond making sure they weren't trying to climb into his shirt looking for food, and he always left feeling better than he had when he arrived.

Of course he'd only discover this as they were preparing to leave, literally days before they were giving the chickens away. Couldn't take them along to wherever it was they were going, after all, and the smoke from the house fire would be deadly to them. Gil had volunteered to take them, and Pauling had said she would cry if she had to see them go. So she and Noah had taken the truck and a load of antiques to resell to the dealership in town, so Scout was waiting for Gil. And that was where he’d been sitting for the last hour or so, drifting in a bittersweet fondness as the hens clucked and fussed and were very disappointed when they gulped down the last of the food he had brought them.

He was half-asleep in the late-afternoon sunshine when a voice stirred him. "Well, am I takin' you, too?"

Scout blinked hard, sitting up just a little too fast. Outside the coop stood Gil, hands in pockets and watching him with an amused sort of look.

"Hey, man," Scout said, getting to his feet. To say their relationship had improved since Scout had fallen off the barn roof was doing it an injustice. One way or another, and Scout still wasn't sure how, they'd sort of become friends. Sort of. At least amiable neighbours. "Here to kidnap our chickens?"

"Huh, if adoptin' is kidnappin' now, I guess I am. Got some crates here for 'em."

They jawed a while, herding the hens into their traveling crates. It took a while considering there were only seven or eight of them, but when they were done they hadn't quite run out of things to talk about: how the nearby town was expanding, how few deer there'd been this summer, the henna dyeing Scout's hands. "Noah did it, yeah. I do it myself sometimes but he's a helluva lot better at it, y'know, went to art school and all."

They ran out of things to say eventually, and just kind of stood there, looking at the chickens as they bobbed around in tight circles in the crates. Scout had perched on top of the long length of rickety fence next to the driveway where Gil had parked, and Gil was leaning against the tailgate of his truck, looking thoughtful.

And after a long stretch of companionable silence, he spoke up, "Well, then. Seeing as how you're leaving and all, there’s a couple of things I need to get off my chest.” The older man shifted awkwardly, fiddled with the rolled up cuffs of his sleeves instead of meeting Scout’s eyes. “First off, I've been meaning to apologize for going off on you the way I did, a few years back."

"Huh?"

Gil looked up, squinted at him as though trying to assess whether he were serious. Finally he said, “Hell. Might be you don’t remember. What Miss Pauling said about--well. About you, and that day, and what happened. You were in pretty rough shape, I guess. When you went and busted your arm good, and when I picked you up off the road. Kinda had it in my head you two, you boys--and you especially if I'm bein' honest--were just a pair of jackasses taking advantage of that poor girl.”

"...Oh," Scout said, grimacing. It was like that one Christmas he’d gotten blackout drunk and called his Ma. He knew it had happened, but he didn’t remember it happening. Probably this was a kindness. “No, I guess I don’t remember. Still, though, y’don’t need to apologize. I mean, well. We _were_ a pair of jackasses, I mean, that, that's pretty much right. Dunno ‘bout Noah, I think he’s lots better, but _me_ \--I still am, probably. I dunno. I’m just, y’know, I'm real selfish sometimes. Times I need somebody to really kick my ass. I think probably I deserved it."

"Son, I don’t know what it all was, but I think you ain’t deserved a lot of what’s happened to you. That ain’t...look, I’m not the kinda man gives a lot of advice. But that ain’t how life works. Stuff doesn’t happen to people because they deserve it. Life ain’t punishing you, sometimes shit just happens. And you ain’t a bad person. I had you all wrong, and I’m not ashamed to admit it--I’ve said so to Pauling, I’ve told her--she was right about you two, and you especially. And I was plain wrong about _her_ , I’m not sure there’s a thing that girl can’t handle once she sets her mind to it. Still. I could've been kinder, is what I mean."

Scout looked at his wrists and their scars, and thought a little too hard about kindness and whether he deserved it or not. Silence. How did you answer that? Damned if Scout knew, first of all, he just shifted his weight the little bit he was able with his leg and scratched his head. "I mean," he said at last, awkward, "ain’t like I ever thanked you for what you did. You sure didn’t have to. So thanks. Thank you. An' I mean, with my arm an' all, that ... Noah and me, we'd just got outta some ... real rough shit, real bad stuff, I dunno if Pauling told you none 'bout why she wound up goin' to you and not a doctor. Just what it was is---it was ... it was stupid, I had it in my head if I so much as looked at a doctor I'd get murdered. An' I mean, Noah was right there with me, he'd'a made me go these days but back then---I'm sayin' I wouldn't have no arm anymore an' I'd probably be dead, too, 'cept you came and fixed it." He lifted his hands and dropped them again helplessly. "So ... thanks."

“Don’t mention it. Was the least I could’ve done.” He paused, and then gently, “She told me why you were in the hospital. I’m glad nothing of a permanent nature happened to your dumb ass, it would’ve been a real shame.”

Scout grinned at this, hoping to lighten the mood, and shrugged. “Oh, well, I ain’t gonna argue with you there. I’m a one of a kinda sorta specimen, yeah, would’ve been a real damn shame.”

And Gil just chuckled. "Sure, kid. Might be you’re right about that. This brings me to my second point though. There’s a thing been rattling around my head, with regard to you; particularly ‘bout how a man with a leg as bad as yours is supposed to be manages to go a mile and a half in a whiteout blizzard, doesn’t get lost, doesn’t have it give out midway. Speaking as someone who pretends at the medical profession, I’d be real curious to get a look at that leg of yours.”

"... My leg," Scout echoed, caught off-guard, suddenly very conscious of the way he favored the right one, kept it tucked securely behind the rail of the fence, and shifting his weight uncomfortably. "I, uh. How come?"

Gil snorted. "I just said so. Call it my apology, an’ something you might do if you really did wanna thank me. I got more of a clue about bones and muscles than any of you three, and the way I see it you ain't ever gonna let nobody in a white coat look at it for you."

"It's ... just, it's a real old ... thing, it ain't gettin' better ..."

"No? Then it won't make no difference lettin' me look at it.” Gil fixed him with a pointed stare and approached, holding a hand out to help him down. “Come on, son. I ain’t fixin’ to hurt you any. I ain’t a real doctor, not of the sort that’s got a coat and a degree, but that’s the rule. Do no harm.”

 


	14. anniversary

****FRONTIER - RED BASE - 1968**  
**

* * *

Scout was, Pyro decided, a very young nineteen. Of course, at his own twenty-one,  _he_ was worldly and mature. Experienced. He’d been to art school, for god’s sake, fucked more boys than Scout ever would, and more  _girls_ too. He’d had a  _threesome_. Granted it hadn’t been his idea, but he’d been an enthusiastic participant, and that absolutely counted. Now he was sprawled on his stomach in the shade outside, surreptitiously watching his boyfriend stretch and loosen his limbs up, preparing to go for a run.

It was a weekend, and Pyro had talked Scout into heading out to Frontier early, to get some time to themselves. The nature of things between them required a certain discretion, but apparently they were in _love_ , now. Pyro grinned to himself, at the sweetness of it. He’d stripped off the hideously hot and choking suit as soon as they’d arrived, discarded his mask. If he kept to the shade, he could get away with a t-shirt—one of Scout’s, actually, stolen out of his luggage because it was more than slightly too small and showed off Pyro’s frankly amazing torso. Red wasn’t  _really_  his color, but he made do. He’d been waiting for Scout to look over and appreciate how gorgeous he was, with his tousled blond curls and his muscular shoulders. He’d never really  _had_ muscles before. Not proper ones, not ones worth gawking at.  _Someone_ needed to appreciate it.

By accident, though, he’d caught himself gawking at Scout a little bit, instead. He clicked his jaw shut and reverted to a more dignified state of salacious ogling. Probably Scout had always been muscular, or at least wiry, long and lean and boyish, and rightly so, at nineteen. Early on in his pursuit, before the eventual conquest that had been the Fourth of July, Pyro had managed to wheedle his way into friendship with the Engineer, and had casually asked what he knew about Scout. There wasn’t much to him, not much that Pyro couldn’t have worked out himself. Young. Possibly too young, for this kind of work, which Pyro had nodded his agreement with, as sagely as only a twenty-one-year-old could. Skinny, though he ate like he’d been half-starved his whole life, which, given the situation with seven older brothers and only one parent to speak of, the Engineer suspected was probably the case. Nice enough. A bit of a mouth on him. A good kid, though.

That sentiment Pyro definitely agreed with. Good. Very, very good. His hat kept the sun out of his eyes, but he still managed to pick up a few freckles across the bridge of his nose, and the sun had kissed his tawny brown hair lightly with gold. And when he looked up and noticed Pyro watching, he grinned in that slightly too-broad, uncaring way he had, his pale blue eyes lighting up like sunshine.

“Hey! Fuckin’ creepy, man. Quitcher starin’,” he scolded playfully, and then trotted over, joining Pyro in the shade of the building next to the stretch of track Scout had picked to run the length of. It was funny to Pyro, how Scout worked at it, at running. Took it so seriously. Once, after stripping out of his own firesuit, pouring sweat and damning the heat of New Mexico, even as late as October, Pyro had asked why Scout didn’t wear shorts on the field. Scout had laughed and just answered “chafing”, which for some bizarre reason had made Pyro blush.

Now he dropped down on the ground, long legs sprawling out in front of him, and kicked Pyro lightly in the knee. “Here, you wanna help me? No runnin’ or nothin’, I know that ain’t your gig.”

Pyro sniffed disdainfully. “I run around plenty already, with my big heavy flamethrower and my air tanks and my enormous firesuit. You, scrawny bastard, you just have a bat and a handgun and your dumb bag, it’s no wonder you’re fast. Load you down in all  _my_  kit, see how far you get. You’d just fall over and  _die_.”

Scout just laughed at him. “Jeez,  _touchy_. It’s okay, man, I get it. You’re real strong. Stronger’n me by a long shot. S’why I want your help, just with a couple stretches? Before I get goin’. I ain’t had a partner in ages, used to be I could get one of my brothers to help me out, but askin’ anyone else on the team’d be weird.”

And a few minutes later, and not for the first time, Scout was flat on his back and Pyro had his hands in a couple of his very favourite places. Only this time it was Scout who was gently talking him through what he wanted, guiding Pyro’s hands to the back of his knee, his ankle, and telling him where and when to push, and how long to hold it.

It was less sexy—not  _un_ -sexy, but less sexy—than Pyro had expected, it took concentration, and strength. And he was strong and knew it, but god damn if he had never really noticed the way Scout’s calves were lithe, spare, taut with muscle like bundled wire. “God,” he murmured, as he pushed Scout’s right leg up, pressed it against his chest and leaned his weight in. "Wow. You really are serious about this, aren't you? Running. I always thought it was kind of silly, it's just  _running_ , anyone can run."

"Sure, yeah, anyone  _can_. But, like, it's more'n that. I dunno, I did a bit of track in school, weren't much good for anythin' else. I had a coach said I could really go places, if my grades'd been better. Like...hell, I dunno, college I guess. They do scholarships an' shit, but I weren't...I mean, wouldn't have had the money for it anyway, even if I'd been any good in school. Ain't like it would've mattered."

This was usually the sort of thing Pyro would have teased him about, but something stopped him. "You're not _that_ dumb, you know."

Scout laughed and grinned up at him, as Pyro switched his grip to the other knee. "Maybe not, but I sure was that fuckin' poor. Goddamn rich kid, with your goddamn art school, you ain't know a damn thing. Aw, it's okay. I don't mind, I'm here now. Pays better'n any of that shit ever could have." He was silent for a few moments, and then, "One thing I always really  _did_ wanna do, was the Boston Marathon. That would have been somethin'. I betcha I could place in the top hundred, even, I'm pretty much in my prime."

Pyro smiled, lighting up with a sudden, unexpected surge of pride. "That  _will_ be something. I've heard of that, even, you're definitely doing that. When is it? We'll get some time off, we'll ask Miss Pauling--"

This dropped the grin off Scout's face. "W-what, now? It's in springtime, but shit, uh, no...no, nah, I ain't trained or anything, I couldn't--"

"You're training now." Pyro was like a dog with a bone when he got hold of an idea. "I'll help you. It'll be great. You're fast. You can do it, I bet you can."

Pyro was pretty sure it was more than just the heat, more than just the way he moved his hands and put one on Scout's chest, affectionate, that had his boyfriend blushing furiously. "Maybe. I guess, yeah, maybe. Next year? D'you think Miss Pauling'd say yes? Aw, man, Pyro, I still kinda got a crush on her, I couldn't even ask--"

"I'm prettier than Miss Pauling is, _you_ just have a thing for chicks with glasses. She's always going on about PR, how the team's supposed to do more positive shit. I bet she'd do it, I bet we could get her to come with us. I'd cheer you on the whole way." Pyro squeezed Scout's knee again, and grinned. "It'll be awesome."

Something changed. Scout sat up and rubbed his eyes, tugging his hat off and looking away.

Pyro paused, and drew back, suddenly concerned. “Am…I’m not hurting you, am I? Say so, if I am, I don’t wanna hurt you.”

Scout blinked up at him, and grinned a little weakly. “What, nah. Nah, man, big ol’ dandelion like you? No way, I’m tough. You ain’t hurtin’ me, not a chance.”

Pyro leaned back, bit his lip.  _Dandelion_. “I mean it. I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t want to hurt you.” He paused a moment. "It's not...it's not what I said about the marathon thing, is it? Scout? I wasn't trying to bully you about it, just...well. It'd be neat, is all."

"Yeah. Yeah, it really would. Ain't anyone ever...I mean, I ain't ever told anyone. How I want to, I always thought it was kinda stupid. You don't, though." He grinned again and Pyro thought maybe his eyes were a little brighter, maybe just a tiny bit damp. "Means a lot, I guess."

Oh was  _that_ it. That had been one of those moments that they'd been having a lot more often, recently, after that night beneath the stars. Pyro leaned forward and kissed Scout gently. "I'm pretty much the best," he declared, hoping to lighten the mood a little, and changed the subject. "I did mean it, though. And make sure you tell me if hurting you, because I don't want to, even by accident."

Scout pulled his hat back on and idly massaged his calves. “You ain’t gonna. Pyro, don’t worry none ‘bout that. I mean, it hurts, yeah, but not any more’n it’s supposed to. I’m okay. S’just, y’know, I can’t do it on my own, can’t get the whole uh…whatsit…Medic told me, one time, ‘cuz I asked…range’a motion. There’s just a point I gotta push past, an’ it helps if someone helps get me there. Not a big deal. Maybe I’ll be kinda sore later, but it’s no big deal, seriously.  Ain’t doin’ any harm, makes it better in the long run.”

Reassured, Pyro gave him a playful shove in the shoulder. “No pun intended,” he scoffed, and took another swipe at the back of Scout’s head, knocking his cap back off. “Yeah, no pun intended, you’re too much of a dummy for clever wordplay. The long run? Get it?”

“Hey!” Scout protested, and shoved back, grinning. “Oh, izzat how it is? You’re just a big damn bully, y’know, big ol’ bastard. ‘Course I get it, so yeah, pun  _totally_ intended. Yeah. Anyway, who you callin’ dumb, even, you with your dandelion fluff for brains. Puffball.”

“Oh, that  _does_ it. C’mere, you.”

Well, now Pyro wanted to get him in a headlock and lunged, clumsily. Scout was too fast, though, easily too quick for him and he rolled away and bounded to his feet and darted into the sunlight, stopping Pyro cold at the edge of his little patch of shade and bouncing eagerly up onto the tracks. “Hah! You’d have to catch me, an’ that ain’t happenin’, not in a million years! Maybe I’ll let you chase me on the way back, maybe I’d even  _almost_ letcha catch up. You're a strong bastard, hell of a fuck an’ all, but no way in the world you’ll ever touch me runnin’. Bye, Pyro! Gotta marathon t'get ready for!”

And then he was off, with a wave and a laugh, bolting off down the tracks like it was what he was made for. Pyro dropped back into the shade, sitting back against the side of the building and grinning to himself. He could have believed it in a heartbeat, that Scout had been made for running. But, deep down, in the part of himself—the part that was still Noah—that was always secretly thrilled to be reminded that someone loved him, he was pretty sure Scout had been made just for him.

 

 

 

**MOUNTAIN LAB - RED BASE - 1969**

* * *

Scout had called him  _dandelion_  for the first time exactly a year ago, though Pyro couldn't have told you that. He wouldn't have cared, either, that day.

That day it was raining. Just bucketing down, the way it only can in the desert. Normally Pyro would have loved this, would have dragged Scout out shirtless into the wet and made an idiot of himself.

That day it was raining and Pyro had had to take Scout halfway across RED's territory, into an abandoned garage, so no one would hear his cries.

He didn't know what Medic had done this time. God. They were only two months into this, how long was it going to last? Pyro was still a nervous, anxious mess all the time, he hated himself, he didn't even know who he was anymore. Was he ever going to get better? Was Scout? Because right now Scout's hands were fisted in Pyro's drenched shirt, and he was gasping with a pain that made every one of Pyro's own nerves recoil. He kept saying there was something in him, in his chest, rattling around. Something alive. Pyro hadn't been able to say anything.

Fucking useless idiot that he was.

So they were in the garage, and Pyro wasn't at all thinking about being called  _dandelion_  or about how nice Scout was to look at, because he wasn't, right now. He was chewing his lower lip to pieces, biting down whimpers every time Scout jerked in pain. He managed not to draw blood, somehow. Or he did, until Scout started begging Pyro to kill him.

There was blood ebbing out of the corner of his mouth. This was all Pyro could focus on as he shook his head wildly, he couldn't, he had nothing to do it with. He'd shot Scout plenty of times, more and more in the last two months, but that was a bullet. All Pyro had to do then was pull the trigger. And the weapons had been locked up indefinitely ever since Soldier and Engineer had done the thing with the coyotes. "I---I can't," Pyro got out. Talking, even to Scout, was terrifying, painful. "Can't."

It fell on deaf ears. Scout was too far gone.

It's amazing what a few short hours will do. Just a couple of hours, listening to Scout only get worse, watching more and more blood seep out of his mouth. Putting a hand on Scout's chest and feeling something lurch against the ribs,  _that_  was something properly out of one of Demoman's horror films. Pyro had flinched so hard he'd nearly pushed Scout out of his lap.

And, just, the whole time.  _Kill me, please, it hurts._

They were halfway into hour five when Pyro broke. The next time Scout asked for death, raggedy-voiced and shaking, Pyro finally gave into the sob that had been building in his chest all that time. He nodded. He put his hands around Scout's throat and wished Scout would stop thanking him.

Well. Scout may have wanted it. Scout's body didn't, Scout's body was its own agent and it wanted to _live_ , it didn't know when to give up. It made Scout thrash and kick with those piston-legs of his as Pyro was trying to choke him, and one of those kicks nailed Pyro square in the stomach. He let go with an agonized yelp and wound up on the ground, doubled up and wheezing in pain.

Scout sounded lost and delirious when he asked him why he'd stopped.

That was when Pyro left him, Scout's protests falling on deaf ears and desperate promises that he would only be a minute, because he would. But he couldn't be  _here_ , not right now.

Pyro walked out into the rain, in the coming dark. He screamed and howled at the sky until he'd goaded himself into seeing red, made himself an enraged bull, and when he thought he was about to snap he charged back into the garage.

He didn't bother waiting for Scout to ask this time. He knelt on his legs and thought he would crush his boyfriend's windpipe, the way he started choking Scout.

The horror of what he was doing broke through again, like always. A minute in he let go and started panicking, he couldn't do this, not to Scout, he couldn't  _do_  this. He wasn't a monster! He couldn't be expected to do this!

But Scout had passed out. Pyro stuttered in his breath and stared down at him, at the way he wasn't struggling or suffering now he was unconscious. He didn't do anything except breathe, and even that was shallow.

Then Pyro wrapped his still-shaking calloused fingers around Scout's neck a third time, and Scout stopped breathing entirely.

 

 

 

 

**SAWMILL - RED BASE - 1970**

* * *

They didn't really talk about it, about what Pyro had to do for Scout every week or so. It had been a year since he'd strangled Scout for the first time. He'd gotten much better at it.

They talked about other things, though.

"So like---hey, Pyro, you listenin'?"

"Mmhm."

Pyro winced when Scout threw a pinecone at him. It bounced off the tent flap. "You ain't neither, you're drawin' all that crazy shit again."

"It's called a  _gesture study_ ," Pyro mumbled irritably. He felt irritable more often than he didn't these days. It was exhausting. "What?"

They were out in Sawmill's woods. Scout was sprawled on the dirt, whole for today. It was a four-day weekend, and they'd decided to high-tail it out into the woods for the whole four days before anyoe could stop them. So no limp, and no Medic, which meant Scout was in a good mood. Pyro, on the other hand, was already sunburned and sore from sleeping on the ground and sick of the granola bars that made up the bulk of what they'd broughten to eat.

Scout was still looking at him. He had a twig in his hair and mud on his cheek. "Just ... I mean, 'cause, our contracts are gonna be up in like two years, right?"

"Three."

"Whatever, just, d'you ... we talked that one time about uh ..." He trailed off, and things went silent in the uncomfortable way Pyro had learned to recognize as one of them almost starting to talk about  _before._  Before Thunder Mountain and Medic and Scout's leg.

They didn't talk about  _before._

They didn't talk about the future, either. The future did not seem to have a light at the end of it, it was just an ongoing circus of fucked-up-ness. So when Scout blurted, "Where d'you wanna go after our contracts is up, is what I'm sayin'," Pyro had to stifle a cringe.

He almost snapped at Scout. Almost gave him a non-answer, shut him down. Pyro glanced down at his sketchbook again. It looked like nothing more than scribbles, just then. And when he raised his eyes back up to Scout he found himself being watched in a hopeful, almost pleading way.

Pyro took a deep breath. He put his sketchbook down and asked anyone who might be listening for grace and kindness. "... I dunno," he said after a moment. "We ... I dunno. Somewhere north, maybe. Maybe Canada, or Alaska."

"Aw, not Alaska, I hate Alaska. S'where Coldfront is, right? I almost got my damn hand bit off by a moose that one time, you remember?"

Oh, Jesus, he'd forgotten about that. A grin fought its way to the surface of Pyro's face. "Because you kept trying to touch its antlers, stupid."

"They looked fuzzy! Nobody'd never told me antlers get fuzzy, I'd just only ever seen antelope skulls and those don't got nothin' on them!"

"That's because they're  _dead._ "

They carried on for another forty-five minutes like that. Eventually they decided they either wanted to go to China, because no one on the team had ever been there, not even Spy, or to Australia, where they'd fight their way through customs just to see if all the rumors were true.

It was a good afternoon, Pyro thought after Scout had crawled into the tent with him and they'd fallen into a comfortable silence, one where Scout was clumsily trying to make tiny braids in Noah's curls. Sometimes he pulled a little too hard, but for the most part it felt nice. Pyro was pretty sure he didn't deserve it, but he didn't stop him, either.

 

 

 

 

**MOTEL 6 , TEUFORT OUTSKIRTS - 1971**

* * *

It had been a year ago that Pyro had been willing to go along with it, pretending they had a future. A future that didn't have nights like this in it, drunken, meaningless nights shitty hotels, just as an excuse to get out of the endless cycle of pain and death that was the Badlands.

Probably it hadn’t been a good idea. It had  _sounded_ like a good idea, but probably they would have been better off without the bottle of vodka, without the orange juice to make it go that much quicker. There’d been enough distance from the base that they had to be careful, Noah had needed to be responsible, and make sure that Scout didn’t get too far gone. He’d already been teary, by the time he remembered, burying his hands in Scout’s shirt, tugging it over his head. He remembered the way Scout’s arms had shaken, when Noah leaned his weight forward against him, insistently catching Scout’s lower lip with his teeth. And then—

Noah woke up in the bathtub, Scout curled up on the floor beside him, shivering violently, knees drawn halfway to his chest. One of his hands was clasped around the wrist Noah had left dangling over the edge of the tub. The room smelled of mildew and stale vomit. Noah didn’t really remember what had happened. His shirt was halfway unbuttoned, Scout’s was gone. Presumably they hadn’t gotten very far, with whatever it was. He shifted, groaned. Scout’s arm spasmed, slid from Noah’s wrist, and then he was just retching, choking on the floor.

Noah sighed. Thought about leaving him. Then heaved himself up, and muttered dully, as he pulled Scout up onto his knees, leaned him over the toilet. “Hey…okay, Scout. Honey, c’mon. Come here. I’m here. C’mon, it’s okay.”

Rubbed his back. Wished he could at least remember if it had been worth it.

 

 

 

 

**VIADUCT - RED BASE - 1972**

* * *

It had been a year since the hotel room where they'd spent a drunken night that Pyro couldn't remember.

Ceasefire had been called over an hour ago now, and Pyro spent a lot of that time cajoling and coaxing Scout into taking a shower instead of just slumping in the chair by the window and staring blankly outside. He was still sweaty and with blood dried in his hair, just sitting on the bed. He'd had a gash in his scalp from a narrow miss with the BLU Spy. This was long healed, but he hadn’t bothered to grab a handful of snow and rinse the rusty red stain out of his hair. He was waiting for Scout to get done in the shower. It had only been ten minutes, and Pyro hadn’t heard anything to make him really worry, no enormous crash of limbs or the crack of a skull on the edge of the bathtub, but still.

Pyro hadn’t pinned down what exactly about this made him so desperately uncomfortable—Scout insisted he was fine, that he couldn’t stand wasting any more time than he already did lying around on an operating table or out of the world in respawn. God only knew Pyro had run light on sleep himself, during school, plenty of people did. It wasn't  _great_ , but it wasn't like it was anything compared to the other shit Scout got put through.

Only there’d been that time Scout had forgotten the entire trip down from Sawmill back to Teufort, the way Pyro had gone down to unload the car, parked outside their small apartment, and returned to find Scout crumpled in a heap on the bed, the first time he’d slept in days. Pyro had put it down to nerves and stress, and gently pulled off Scout’s dusty shoes, his hat, and tucked him under the blankets, and that was where he’d stayed for the next fourteen hours. That had been the start of it, and things hadn’t gotten better. He’d kept doing it, days and days without sleeping.

Except--

Scout slipped out of the bathroom, with a towel around his hips, bonier than Pyro ever remembered that they were. He was rubbing at his neck and looking a little more lost than usual. Still, he wandered over to the bed where Pyro was sitting and sat down on the floor in front of him, leaning against his shins, resting his face against Pyro's knee. Scout was quiet for a minute or so, and`Pyro smoothed down his damp hair, gently taming the little cowlick Scout got in the back, when his hair got too long.

"Hey," he started, and trailed off, moving his hand and revealing a bruise on his neck. "D'you...uh...this--on my neck? See? I can't remember where it came from, an' respawn didn't catch it, when that fuckin' BLU Soldier got me earlier. So I guess I started the match with it, 'cept I can't remember...just...I try an' keep track of that shit, an' I can't..." Scout stopped, and Pyro realized he was staring at his boyfriend, and he knew he hadn't been quick enough to hide the confusion on his face.

Pyro stared at him, at the bruise he knew he'd left. "That...that was this morning. You don't remember, this morning? I did that. I bit you. I mean...you didn't seem to mind, we were...fuck, I was behind you. You remember, right? This morning?"

"O-oh. Oh, okay. All right, if that's all it is. No big deal." Scout shrugged and leaned a little heavier against Pyro's knee.

"It--I mean, it's never bugged you before, that kinda thing, but if you'd said...look, I didn't mean to be too rough. I know I get carried away. You could've said."

"Nah. Nah, s'cool, forget it. This morning...no, yeah. S'fine."

 _This morning, up against the dresser in the corner, woke up extra early and caught you before you left to get down to the fucking medical bay. Caught you and kissed you and bit you on the neck and turned you around and--oh Jesus._  "You don't remember."

Scout had always been a terrible liar, and it always showed plainly on his face when he got caught at something. "No, I--I mean, yeah, 'course I remember, what the fuck. Pyro--"

Pyro felt his throat constrict, acid rising in his chest. "Shit. Oh my god. Christ, I--I'm sorry. Scout,  _Jesus_. That can't happen again, what the hell."

He could tell he was making Scout nervous now, that he hadn't been expecting this kind of reaction. "...what, it ain't a big deal. It's fine."

"I fucked you and you weren't in the sort of state where you could remember afterward. Oh god. It was like four in the goddamn morning, and you don't fucking  _sleep_ , Scout. Sometimes you're not all there. And I--oh  _Christ_."

"...I...w-what, though, that ain't...that's just how it is, that's okay. Pyro, what're--I don't get it. It's okay. Just, that's the thing that matters, right? I got my shit together now, an' it's fine. It's all right. Right? Pyro?"

 _Oh my god you fucking idiot._  "No. No, that's not how it works." Pyro's hands had clenched on his knees and Scout had sat up straight, twisted around, was staring up at him, pleadingly. "We need to take a break. No more...fuck. Scout. No more screwing around. I can't...we can't do anything like that, not until we figure some shit out."

"...no. Pyro--man, what the fuck. Don't say that. Please. All fuckin' day I got people killin' me an' then fuckin'  _Medic_ , an'...an' even you, sometimes, but--I ain't got anyone else. Just, I-I need--"

And on and on, halting and heartbroken, about how badly he needed kindness and intimacy and love. And Pyro felt himself running short on all three.

 

 

 

 

**OREGON - 1973**

* * *

A year ago he'd still been Pyro, and now he was Noah again for the first time in years. He wouldn't have dared to hope, just a year ago, that he would ever want to be Noah again. Pyro had had the mask and the suit and the axe and the flamethrower to keep himself hidden, not that they'd done any damn good. After RED and the hell they'd been through, it was selfish for Noah to think he still had problems, when Scout was still fragile, still barely sleeping, still trapped in the Badlands.

Noah had always been selfish, though, had always been able to find some dramatic reason to be miserable. Scout had been the one who got to be broken, but Noah had been the one who'd had to hide it, and be the stronger of the two of them. Still, secretly, he was broken too. He had his hates and his fears and his secret violent nature, hard-coded into him by year after year of murdering the first boy who'd ever loved him. He was still just as selfish as he'd ever been. And if he'd had his way, Noah would have lit the sky on fire and let the smoke cover the earth and dye the atmosphere gray forever.

He hated the sky.

You'd never know it, because Noah had gotten used to it when he was fourteen. He'd gotten used to the fact that he would never be able to stand in the sun like everyone else he knew, that there always had to be a layer of plastic or cloth between him and the sky.

Most of the time it was okay. The Badlands, strangely, had made it easier than anywhere else except Oregon. No one looked at him weird when he kept his suit on all the time. Well. They did, but they were looking at the mask and the embroidered flames on his arms and the heavy flamethrower he toted with him everywhere. They were not looking at his cloud-white skin and sunshine hair and sky-blue eyes. His mother used to say she'd stolen from the sky to make his eyes as blue as they were. He'd believed her until he was eight.

And in the Badlands he'd gotten to kill the people wearing that sky, which helped, sometimes.

Oregon was better. Oregon was cloudy almost every day, seldom mocking him with that rich blue he'd grown to envy and hate. Oregon's sky was gray on average, gray-blue, and their second week there Noah had noticed it was the same color as Scout's eyes. He didn't tell him that for another six months, not until a late November night where they'd all had a little too much rum and were all a little too tired for sex. Pauling fell asleep first, and for the first time in what might have been years Noah had curled up in Scout's lap and prodded and nudged until Scout held him. It was awkward and unfamiliar, their roles reversed, and Scout couldn't seem to figure out what to do with his arms. But he held him anyway, and tighter when Noah drunkly, affectionately told him that his eyes were why Noah loved Oregon's sky.

But Oregon couldn't be overcast all the time. And it was hard, some of those clear days, hard to watch his partners lying out in the summer grass with their faces to the sky.

Noah didn't really get jealous, not especially. Envy was another thing, though. He'd envied plenty on RED. He'd envied the couples he saw holding hands and kissing in public, he'd envied people whose lives weren't controlled by a sadistic doctor, whose boyfriends hadn't become an unrecognizable mockery of themselves. These days he envied the simple peace that existed between Scout and Pauling, and the fact that Pauling wasn't afraid of Scout, not like she sometimes got about Noah. He envied the puppyish devotion Scout had for her.

She was fixing him. In some way that Noah couldn't, she'd pulled Scout out of the darkness and let the light touch him, she didn't keep him trapped in the shade and the shadows of the past he shared with Pyro. She was new and fresh and bright, a part of the future they had talked about years ago, the one Noah had never been able to believe in. The one he still couldn't bring himself to trust. 

Sometimes it got to be too much, and Noah would leave them in their sun to hide in the cool rafters of the attic or the dirt walls of the cellar. Just somewhere else. Somewhere where his stolen eyes couldn't start to turn green. Where he could have his secret darkness, his secret black jealousy. 

They had never noticed, and he intended to keep it that way.

 

 

 

 

**OREGON - 1974**

* * *

A year ago it had still been strange, having Pauling involved. Watching her dozing in the summer sunshine with her head on Scout's chest and his arms around her, Noah had been jealous. A year ago they had both still been calling her Miss Pauling. Now, more often than not, it felt like she'd been a missing piece the whole time.

They hadn't intended to sneak off to the barn to get busy without her, really. What the boys  _had_  meant to do was sand the old paint off the stout little coffee table Pauling had found at a rummage sale. And they had! They wore the dust masks and everything. They were even going to prime it to be repainted, except Pyro had pulled off his shirt because it had paint flecks and sawdust all over it, and Scout had gotten distracted. He had gotten so distracted it made the rest of Pyro's clothes mysteriously vanish, too.

And, well, it was a sturdy little coffee table, and they'd turned Pyro's shirt inside out and thrown that over it. And Scout only liked giving head if he could lean his arms on Pyro's legs, being on his knees for long hurt too much otherwise. So it was perfect, really, and there was always something fun about messing around in places other than the bedroom.

Loud sex had become scarcer and scarcer for them over the years at RED, and they hadn't really gotten it back at Pauling's. This was a damn fucking shame, in Scout's book, because that had been one of his favorite things about fucking Pyro, the unabashed sounds he used to make. So, really, he hadn't been expecting the throaty moans, though he sure as hell didn't complain about them. And those, probably, were part of what wound up drawing Miss Pauling into the barn.

Neither of them noticed her at first, Pyro with his back to her and Scout kind of occupied. They continued not noticing her until she came right up to them and cleared her throat. Pyro went totally still, his fingers still in Scout's hair, and Scout had been right in the middle of licking his lips clean. They both looked up to see Pauling grinning down at them, eyes half-lidded, her button-down shirt hanging open. "Was I not invited?"

Scout was hunting for a response when Pyro got out, breathlessly, "There is  _always_  a standing invitation for either of you to suck me off."

Pauling burst out laughing, and bent her head to kiss him. Scout scoffed, wiping off his mouth as he got to his feet. Pauling pulled him down for a kiss too as he did, heedless of where his mouth had just been. It didn't take long for things to get hot and heavy again, after that. Miss Pauling left her glasses on. Scout always liked that.

They got a good fifteen, twenty minutes of fun in, at least, before Pauling roughly shoved Scout off of her and started pawing at her throat. Wheezing, badly. He had frozen when she'd pushed him away, on instinct and with a horrible drop of his stomach, but now he was rigid with fear. "M--Miss Pauling? Sweetheart?"

He was answered with nothing but a horrible wracking cough that flung him backwards in time, back to the Badlands. Paralysis set in. All he could do was stare even as Pyro tried to intervene. "Pauling? Pauling.  _Shit._  Honey, say something."

She couldn't say anything, Scout wanted to snap, clearly, she obviously couldn't fucking  _breathe_. The air was full of sawdust and hay and paint flecks, this was the fucking stupidest thing they'd ever done. But the words didn't come. A pathetic, sad little whine did, though. It broke off as Pauling's wheezing got loud enough that it hurt his ears.

Pyro's eyes, wide and nervous, cut to Scout, then back to Pauling. "Is this---this is asthma. Right? Pauling." She nodded, a weak jerk of the head. She was getting blue in the face. " _Shit._  U-um. Your inhaler. That's what you need, right? Yeah? Shit. Okay. Um. I don't wanna move her. Scout, y'know where her inhaler is?" Scout stared at him. Pyro grimaced, bared his teeth. " _Scout_!"

Scout whimpered. It took Pyro getting to his feet and putting himself between the two of them to even begin to pull him back to reality. " _Scout_ , honey, snap out of it." He didn't dare touch him. "Look, I'm going to stay with her, she needs you to go and get her inhaler. She has one on the windowsill over the sink. Okay?"

"O--okay, um---"

"Go, okay, just go.  _Hurry_ ," Pyro added, gesturing. Scout drew one more stuttering breath, one that felt at least as hard to take as Pauling's were now, and staggered to his feet.

He ran.

Later he would have no memory of bolting outside, clearing the yard, leaping the stairs. He scrambled into the kitchen and thank  _God_  the inhaler was right where Pyro'd said. Then suddenly he was back in the barn, and Pyro was taking the inhaler out of his hands and pressing it into Pauling's. It all seemed to happen very fast, faster than Scout had become used to things happening. Kind of all he could think of was all the times Medic had fucked with allergens. Scout hadn't been allergic to anything when he joined the team. These days, even though he'd long since gone back to his original state, he still avoided peanuts and mold and a dozen other things like the plague.

There was a word for what he did after he brought the inhaler back, but he couldn't remember it. It felt like he went away, letting someone else deal with the reality set before him. He had no idea how much later it was when he sort of rubberbanded back into reality, but now he was back in his shorts and sitting at the kitchen table, and Pyro was rubbing his shoulders. It was the only kind of touch they'd found that didn't send Scout panicking a mile a minute, and it was grounding.

Miss Pauling was sitting across from him. Her shirt was back on, though the buttons were still undone. The inhaler lay on the table next to her, and she didn't look blue anymore. She just looked tired. "Scout?"

"... mmn."

"Shit. Ugh. I'm so sorry, boys," Pauling said, swiping at her nose. "I got caught up, I should've known better."

"S'fine."

That didn't get an answer, just a ... strange, sad kind of look from Pauling. Pity, that was it. Scout was too tired to care.

Behind him, Pyro squeezed his shoulders and smoothed out his hair. "You really booked it," he said gently. "I think it only took you two minutes to get the inhaler. I didn't know you could ... mmm. Well, you did good," Pyro finished. Scout felt light pressure on the top of his head, a kiss. "Pauling's okay. You did good."

"... okay," Scout said, numb.

 

 

 

 

**OREGON - 1975**

* * *

****

_Dear Mrs. Cassidy,_  the letter started, just like always, and just like always Noah faltered and stared down at the page. What was he doing? Writing into a void, maybe leading his boyfriend's mother on year after year with the hope she might one day see Scout again. It was a hope Noah could force out on paper, all nice words, but it mostly felt like lying. Sure, Scout was better now, almost something like he'd been when they'd first met. But Noah had long since learned not to bring up going back home to him. Pauling hadn't learned this, and still asked him about it sometimes. If they were lucky, it would only ruin Scout's mood for an hour or so.

If they weren't lucky, well.

It just always bothered Noah, that was all. What was he supposed to write about, that they'd found out Scout had been cutting himself? That Noah had nearly gotten both of them killed with his stunt in the barn fire? How a year ago they'd both nearly killed Pauling in the barn, being young and stupid and obsessed with each other? Shit. It was amazing they'd lasted this long. What would Mrs. Cassidy do if---when, he thought grimly---the letters stopped?

But if he didn't write the damn thing they would stop. Obviously.

_Dear Mrs. Cassidy..._

> _... I hope this letter finds you well. It's only a week or so out from Thanksgiving, so hopefully it will find you at all, and not get lost in the mail._
> 
> _It's felt like a long year. I'd like to tell you everything is fine, but I think that would be a lie, and given how little I tell you to begin with I can't do that in good conscience. But they aren't as bad as they could be. We're all still together. Scout_

"Shit," Noah hissed aloud, and scribbled the ink out.

> _~~Scout~~ Adam is still getting by, though I know he misses you more every day. It's been so long it seems hard to imagine that being possible, but he really does. I'm a little jealous of him, having so much love for you. My mother died last year. I hadn't spoken to her in ten years, and I didn't even go to the funeral._
> 
> _That probably sounds damning, and it probably is. I promise I'm not rubbing off on him. It took him a long time to start to understand why I'm estranged from my family, and I hope he never really understands because I don't want that for him._
> 
> _But this letter isn't about me. What's new that I can share with you?_
> 
> _Adam cooks, have I told you that? He's better than either his girlfriend or I, by a mile. He's better than most chefs I've encountered. He tells me he learned it from you, and that you cook better. If that's the case I certainly hope you've gone into business for yourself, because you could make an embarrassing amount of money._

Every letter he dragged out onto the page felt stupid and pointless. It usually wasn't  _this_  bad. Noah chewed on the end of the pen, staring at the stationary.

> _But I guess that's an aside. I've told you before that our job was hard on Adam. Very hard, so hard I sometimes didn't think he'd make it. But he's proven me wrong again and again, because of course he has. You'd have to be an idiot to know Adam and not expect him to do what you least anticipated. It's not always a good thing. We had a bad stint this year, of that. Do believe me when I tell you he is better, better now than he ever has been, but some of that came with a cost._
> 
> _It would only hurt you to know the details, but he's getting better about that cost now, I think. We're working on it with him. Me, especially, because I'm afraid I contributed to it more than anyone else. I've had to take a hard look at myself. Sometimes I think things would be better off if I stepped out of the picture, but to be very honest I'm a selfish person and I couldn't if I tried. So I'm trying the things I can do, instead. It's hard, changing, but I'm sure you know that, too._
> 
> _I suppose now you'll probably worry more. I'm sorry about that. It felt facetious of me to not tell you, though. I hope this picture will help you not to. I took it just a week or so ago, so it's recent._

The photo in question, ah, yes. It had been hard to get. Scout didn't like being photographed, Noah had learned almost immediately after getting his camera, he said it made him feel "observed." Noah knew what he meant, of course. So he just made a point to be very careful--very sneaky--with the photos he took. Scout had no idea that Noah had an entire small album of him, hidden in one of the drawers of the desk in his studio. There were snaps of Pauling in there, too, but they were mostly of Scout. Noah wasn't nearly so worried about running out of time with Pauling, after all.

But the photo. It was lying face-down beside his hand as he wrote, and now he reached over and flipped it up. It had been taken in the bright light of the kitchen on a rainy November afternoon, and you could just see the storm lashing the window over the sink. This was halfway off the frame, given the main subject of the photo was the man hunched over a pan full of meat and bright vegetables, steadying it with one hand and hovering a jar of some bold red spice in the other. No fewer than two of the other stove burners were occupied next to it, a boiling pot and some complicated-looking silver thing full of diced potatoes that Noah still didn't know the name of. You could just see a silver of Scout's face: hard concentration, an intensity Noah only really remembered from their first few months on the team together. It was a great shot, if Noah was to flatter himself (and he was). Evelyn would love it.

 _He's doing well again these days,_  Noah wrote next, and stalled once more. He hoped that would last.

> _I guess there's not much else left to tell you, just that. I hope it keeps your spirits up. Give Adam's love to his family. I know he wishes he could do it himself._
> 
> _N.D._

And with that he folded the letter up around the photo, and went hunting for an envelope.

 

 

 

 

****OREGON - 1976**  
**

* * *

 

It had been eight years since a day of no particular note, a day of summer sunshine and the arid, searing heat of New Mexico. Eight years since he'd been nineteen, and newly a murderer, newly a mercenary, newly in love, and trying to act like he was older than he was. Not thinking terribly hard about the future, because nothing he'd ever believed about the future had ever come true, especially not in the Badlands. Pyro was the only part of his future he could even have hoped to guess at, and at the time it had all been too fresh to know what they were ever going to be.

Scout heard the truck come rattling up the driveway, distantly. He'd never fixed the loose exhaust pipe in the back, but he thought about it every time he heard it. He'd always had the time, always known how, he'd just...well. Sometimes things just seemed like they were _meant_ to be broken.

That was kind of funny, when he thought about it.

He resolved to have a look at it after he got finished, for the moment he pushed Pauling's truck to the back of his mind and tried to concentrate. Stretching. He'd had a routine years ago and he still knew it forwards and backwards. But he was woefully, pitifully out of practice, out of shape, and out of touch. He hadn't used to _need_ to concentrate.

Still. It was all still there. It all still worked. And almost like he was sleepwalking his way through it, he started working through the old sequence, tentatively stretching his calves, thighs. Flexing his back, twisting his hips slightly, loosening his limbs. He'd never felt closer to thirty in his entire life.

Well. Of course not. It wasn't as though it was getting any further away.

It wasn't that he was hiding behind the barn, exactly. Scout just hadn't wanted to be seen, would have felt like he was being caught at something. He should have known he would worry Noah and Pauling, that they'd come looking when they got home and failed to find him. It was Noah who tracked him down, and Scout sort of froze up when he looked up at his partner, peeking around the corner of the barn, keeping to the late afternoon shade.

"Uh. Hi." Noah was staring at him, gawking a bit. "What in God's name are you doing?"

Sat on the ground with his left leg extended, Scout felt his cheeks heat up and he dropped into what he hoped was a neutral posture, suddenly all too aware of his limbs, and the way he still favoured his leg, even in spite of what Gil had told him. "Jeez, with your starin'. Quit it, ain't your ma ever told you it ain't polite?" he joked, awkwardly trying to cover his sudden shyness. "S'just, what's it look like, just tryna stretch some. A bit. Uh, just warmin' up a little. I was gonna go for a run. Y'know. Maybe." Scout wasn't sure why he felt quite so embarrassed. Pyro had used to help him stretch all the time, ages ago.

Noah was looking at him like he'd sprouted a second head. "Is that...uh. I'm not babying you, first of all. Just--well. Are you sure you should? Maybe you want to talk to somebody first, maybe have someone take a look at it." Noah had very carefully avoided the word doctor, as per usual.

Scout very carefully avoided looking at him when he answered. "Gil did. Uh, when he was picking up the chickens, we talked awhile, an' he offered to...well, no, more'n offered, said he felt like it'd square things up. Said it's fine, s'just...got weak on account of how I always stay off it. He says he thinks there weren't ever anything wrong with it, only reason it hurts now is just...uh...I forget the word he said, honestly I wasn't really listenin' like I should've been. Something started with 'a', I think."

Noah had approached dropped down on the grass to sit next to him. "Atrophy," he offered, his voice a little softer, gentler than usual.

Scout shrugged. "Yeah. I guess it's that. Ain't anything wrong with it that I ain't done to myself, anyway." He kept his gaze fixed firmly on the ground, busied his hands by pulling up handfuls of grass, pointedly not thinking about how many years ago he could have fixed this. "So. So, uh, I dunno. Was gonna try an' see... I mean, I pushed it before, a few times. Ain't like it really gives out like it used to back--y'know. Before. On RED. Just that it hurts like a bastard, but maybe I can work on that. I dunno. Just thought maybe I'd try."

"There _was_ something wrong with it, though. Back in the Badlands, there was definitely, uh…" Noah always seemed to fumble slightly, when he brought up the past, especially the harsher aspects of it. He reached over and caught Scout's hand before he could shred any more grass, his palms already stained chlorophyll green. "I mean, it's only that I remember, there were days you could barely stand, and going to Medic was the only way to get it put right."

Even the mention of Medic seemed to have less sting than it used to and Scout shifted his gaze to Noah's fingers, blunt and strong, especially pale compared to the darkness of the black ink on his own forearm. "Yeah. I...I dunno. Maybe it wore off, or maybe...mighta been he just let me fool myself into thinkin' it was fucked up, s'the sorta shit he would've done. Probably I could've figured it out a lot sooner. S'my own fuckin' fault, y'know, if I weren't such a damn coward, I--"

"You've never in your entire life been a coward," Noah interrupted, a slight catch in his voice, before he reached out and clasped Scout's hand in both his own, and his tone grew firmer, convicted. "Never. Any time I've ever said so was just me being shitty and cruel, Scout. If I ever say it again, don't you ever believe me. Please. You went through hell. You don't need any excuses for the way you are."

"A lotta the shit I've done is like the sorta shit cowards do." With the panic attacks, the terror of doctors, the cutting, the handful of pills. Cowardice. There was no way in the world Scout would have predicted that this was who he'd turn out to be, eight years ago. "Don't...y'don't gotta humor me, Pyro. What happened on RED--maybe was one thing, but it all got put right at the end. Everything since then's all been _me_. 'Bout time I tried t'fix it."

Noah's evaluating stare was like pressure at the back of his throat, and his silence seemed to go on a little too long, but eventually he spoke, gentle again. "Can I help?" he asked.

Scout had been hoping that he'd change the subject and was relieved when he realized what Noah was offering. "Huh? Oh...what, with stretching? Uh. Uh, well, yeah. Sure. I guess, yeah. That'd...yeah, actually. That'd be good."

The number of times Pyro-- _Noah_ , he'd always been Noah, even when he'd been Pyro--had put him in this position probably numbered into the hundreds. Supine, vulnerable. Trusting a pair of hands that had done almost as much violence to him as Medic ever had, and hurt even now, as Noah carefully followed instructions, and manouvered Scout's right leg through a broader range of motion than he'd attempted in years. And it was _agony_ , but he mostly managed to contain it, until a spasm of pain shot from his ankle up to his knee and he failed to stifle a sharp gasp.

Noah let go immediately. "Oh, Jesus, I'm hurting you. _Say something_ if I do that, Scout, for Christ's sake. I hate hurting you. Maybe I shouldn't--"

"S'fine," Scout interrupted, and pushed himself up, massaging his calf. "It's gonna hurt. But I brought it on myself, though, an' it ain't like I can't take it. C'mon, man, you know me. Ain't anyone else I'd ask."

"Pauling could--"

"Pauling ain't anywhere near strong enough."

There wasn't a damn thing Noah could say to refute that, and Scout knew it. "Alright," he said eventually, putting his hands back on Scout's leg. "Okay. I get it. But you---um."

Scout watched him, felt him gently rubbing his fingers against his calf. Noah's eyes were on the ground, and after a few seconds of that he kind of laughed. "Just, maybe you could stop blaming yourself like that, then. It kills me, you saying that. I think---I think we did a pretty good job that we came out of it at all. _You_ did a pretty good job. I wouldn't've been able to handle it, any of it. I know I was such a bastard for such a long time, but I really always wished I was as strong as you."

They were heavy words. They settled over Scout slowly and he let them, digesting them, wondering what to think about them.

But in the end he just shook his head, smiling a smile that felt a little sad, but it was an old sort of sadness. It was a far-away sadness, dulled and muted by time, and it hurt less than it simply existed.

Then the smile went roguish on him, quite unexpectedly, and he reached out and ruffled Noah's spun-gold curls. "You are just a big damn dandelion puff, ain'tcha," he said fondly. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. I mean, I'll try anyway. But you gotta keep helpin' me here or I ain't gonna do shit."

Noah grinned, swiped at his eyes. "Boston marathon or bust?"

"Why the hell not?" Scout got to his feet, and even just this already seemed easier than it had in years, lighter, freed of some burden that had never really been what he'd thought it was. He offered Noah a hand up, squeezed his fingers and let them go. "Gotta get started now, though. I won't be long." He grinned. "Tell Pauling, get the pair of you to give me a good ol' rub down when I get back. All right?"

This was the sort of comment that usually would have gotten a response in kind, but Noah was looking him up and down, and Scout couldn't quite read his expression. Eventually he just said, "Don't...don't push yourself too hard, okay? We've got a big day tomorrow."

Scout shook his head, winked a little. "I'll be lucky if I get to the end of the damn driveway, I am way outta shape. Don't worry 'bout me, Noah." And then, gently, meaning it, "I'm okay."


	15. exorcism

The house was as bare as when they’d first arrived, except for the murals Noah had painted on the walls. The rest of his paintings had all been donated to the hospital in town, along with enough money to build an entire new ward. This had been a grandiose gesture on Noah’s part, though not unappreciated. Scout had covertly dropped a check for fifty thousand dollars in the collection basket one Sunday, to rebuild the local church’s aging roof. When Pauling had commented, not unkindly, that she’d never so much as seen him set foot inside, he had only shrugged and answered that sometimes it was enough just to know it was there. Pauling hadn’t donated anything. Her carefully curated collection of antiques had been sold back to various dealers, at cutthroat prices that turned her a margin of profit. All the remaining household miscellany had been donated to thrift stores.

And they’d been stalling ever since. It was a big deal, kind of, and while no one had said they wanted to back out of it they were all still kind of milling around, delaying, waiting as if for a signal. Scout, particularly, would have liked a signal. Miss Pauling didn’t much believe in omens and portents and that kind of thing, but Noah always had in a vague kind of sense and so had Scout’s mother. He supposed it had rubbed off. He supposed that was why he was waiting, at least.

The barn was emptied. Now the house was emptied, and the chickens were gone, and the forest out back of their property stood the same as it ever had. Damn forest. He hoped Noah wouldn’t let the fire spread to it. It was nice for a forest. Now his leg was aching again, but it was a different ache than the one he’d grown used to. Now his eyes kept drifting off toward the highway.

Now Noah was snapping his fingers in Scout’s face. “Hey, astronaut. You hear me?”

“What?”

The kitchen was the only room in the house with anything left in it. Even the bedrooms were stripped, they’d taken to sleeping outside for the last two nights. But they still needed to eat, and Scout needed to cook, and that was what he had been doing. He blinked at Noah, and looked down at the stove. The chicken was burning. “Aw, shit, move it I need the tongs—”

“I asked if you needed anything else out of the attic,” Noah said, stepping back as Scout scrambled to yank the fried chicken from the skillet. “There’s a couple of bigger things up there still but I wasn’t sure if they’d come with the house or not.”

“Uh, like what?”

“I dunno, like, a couple of chairs and some boxes with records in them.”

“Man, when have I ever even owned a record, ain’t nothin’ on a record I can’t get on the radio. You wanna get those paper bags laid out for me? Gotta drain these. You ever burn a record?”

“Not recently,” Noah said, obeying. Scout dropped the chicken onto the wire rack above the bags like puzzle pieces, fitting them together. “Man, you haven’t made fried chicken in forever.”

“I made it like three weeks ago.”

“ _Forever,_ ” Noah insisted. “Seriously, I think some of the stuff up there is yours, come look at it with me.”

He did, and as it turned out, Noah was right. There was a box of baseball memorabilia along with the wooden utensils Scout had thought he’d lost years ago. He poured over them a good ten minutes before standing up and saying, “Yeah, y’know, I think just leave ’em. Burn ’em.”

Noah cast a sideways glance at him from where he was looking out the lone tiny window. “You sure?”

“Sure I’m sure, I ain’t missed ’em in years, have I? Truck’s full as it is. Burn ’em.”

He was still looking down at them when Noah sidled over, throwing an arm around his waist. Scout leaned against him. “You ready, then?” Noah asked softly.

Scout shrugged, reaching up to thread his fingers through his partner’s curls. “Even if I ain’t I don’t wanna stop now. C’mon, let’s find Pauling.”

 

* * *

 

They found Pauling rearranging the boxes in the back of the truck, struggling to strap down one last bungee cord. Noah muscled his way in and did it for her, and while he did she went back around to the front of the truck and popped open the glove compartment. “What’s that?” Scout asked as she fished out a folded brown thing from it.

“It’s—well, you’ll remember.” She unfolded it on the seat, and he peered over her shoulder at it.

And he did, instantly. Of course he did. “Sheesh, Pauling, wasn’t that the library’s map?”

“It was, and then you drew all over it,” Pauling said, “and I decided it was a piece of art instead. Oh, don’t look at me like that. No one had even checked it out in absolute ages.”

Scout waved her off. “Okay, just I thought the idea here was we were gettin’ outta Oregon.” Wordlessly, Pauling turned the map over. A worn, aged rendition of the United States was on the other side. “Oh, well, alright then. What’re you thinkin’? Where to?”

She tilted her head, just a fraction, looking at him with that measuring sort of expression she had so often. “Well,” she said at last, drawing her finger across the paper until it came to rest on a tiny spot in the top-right of the page. “Massachusetts, unless you’ve changed your mind.”

How the hell did he keep forgetting that?

“I mean—nah, I meant after. Yeah.” His strategy so far had been starkly not thinking about it, not thinking about what he’d agreed to in the hospital. He searched for a smile and found it more easily than he would have guessed. “Kinda it’s been a crazy week.”

“We don’t have to if you change your mind.”

“Who, me? Nah—”

And then across the yard, Noah: “If you two don’t get over here this instant I’m going to eat all of this chicken myself!”

 

* * *

 

As it happened, Noah did not get any of the chicken. Not right away, at least. Instead all three of them carried out the last of the kitchen things, including the chicken, to deposit it on the picnic blanket Scout had laid out earlier. With it came wine and a cake of Pauling’s own design (and actually quite good for it being so), and the scotch Demoman had left them.

Scout found he wasn’t especially hungry. He was less hungry after helping Noah pour kerosene all through the house, over the furniture and rugs they’d chosen to abandon, though he thought this was less because he was nervous and more because as much as he’d agreed to go along with it, they _were_ still burning a perfectly good house. (The smell of kersoene didn’t help much, either.) It felt like the ultimate waste. He mentioned this to Noah.

“Well,” Noah said, after a few minutes’ thought. “The way I’m looking at it is like it’s maybe an exorcism.”

“Exorcism.”

“You know—like that movie that came out a couple years ago.”

“Man, I don’t go to no movies.”

“You are uncultured swine and I want a divorce.” Scout swatted at him and Noah laughed. “Okay, but, it just means—like in ancient history, they’d get demons possessing people and that rubbish. You had to exorcize them to get them to go away. The demons, I mean, not the people.”

Scout emptied the last of his kerosene over the living room rug. “So you are sayin’ there are demons in our house.”

“I mean—”

“That is a real fuckin’ rude way to refer to Miss Pauling, man.”

“Oh, shut up! You know what I mean, right?”

“Yeah,” Scout said, “yeah, I think so.”

He thought he did, at least, and the idea of cleansing fire seemed a little less harsh, then.

They finished soaking the place, and dumped the emptied barrels behind the house. Noah had taken his time with the firebreak after all, clearing it enough that Scout could find no reason to worry. The truck was almost all the way down the driveway, just in case, and their picnic was a respectful distance away as well (though not as close as Noah wanted it). Pauling was waiting for them on the white porch steps, where she had been building a little pile of kindling to get things going. As Scout stepped onto the porch he was struck with the strangely sharp memory of Noah in the throes of another raging fit while ragtime music played; of holding Pauling while Spy blew his world apart.

Yeah, he thought, exorcism. That sounded pretty good.

Together, they walked down the porch steps for the last time.

Noah had a lighter. Noah had lots of lighters, really, but as he unpocketed a scratched, rusty Zippo Scout knew at once that it was the oldest one he owned, one that he’d had since before they’d met. He turned it over in his hand, slow and contemplative, and then snapped it open and alight with a flick of his wrist. “Well,” he said eventually, pulling his eyes away from the flame, “everyone ready?”

Miss Pauling nodded, and then both of them looked at Scout. Scout shifted his weight, tentatively putting some on his bad leg. It still hurt, but in a way that ached the way he remembered his legs aching, back before RED—the way they’d ached after he and his brothers had gone sprinting out of trouble, scrambling over fences, leaping railroad tracks.

He looked at the house, and he thought about home.

“Yeah,” he said. “Ready.”

Noah pulled his arm back—pitched the lighter into the kindling on the old porch—the flame caught, and held, and grew, huge and vast and grand like the Holy Spirit descending upon the house in cleansing.

It was Noah who turned away from it first, and Pauling shortly after. Scout followed, eventually, but not until the fire had climbed to the rafters.

 


	16. home

Funnily enough, the hardest part of the whole thing wasn't getting out of the truck, or even walking up to the door. It was stepping into the shadow of his mother's house. It was a bright, beautiful day, the perfect temperature in early July, and the shadow the house cast was dark and cold-looking by comparison. It swallowed up the door, and Scout was pretty sure it would swallow him up, too, before he could even get up the front step.

Scout didn't look back at the truck. He'd promised himself he wouldn't do that, because if he did he was pretty sure he'd lose his nerve altogether. He'd forced himself into a kind of zen about the idea of going home, and then Noah had managed to ruin it with his own jitters. It was understandable, he thought, what with Noah's own history with parents, but it was still frustrating. The drive in from the hotel had been agony, because he'd spent most of it watching Noah get more and more keyed up.

"It's okay if you can't do it," he'd told Scout for the tenth time that day, drumming his fingers a little too fast on the steering wheel. "We won't think any less of you."

"I know, Noah." He heard Pauling sigh, but she didn't add anything.

"You don't have to tell her anything about me. I know there's Gabe and all but it's, it's probably best if I stay out of the way. Introduce her to Pauling, that'd---"

"You ain't my dirty little secret, man," Scout snapped. "Assumin' she don't kick me to the curb first thing or nothin', she's gonna meet both'a you an' I don't wanna fuck around with none'a that crap about you being my best friend."

"... I _am_ your best friend, though," Noah said, sort of sullenly.

"Yeah, an' also you're my boyfriend, it ain't, what's the word. It ain't fuckin' mutually exclusive. Shit, an' ain't we married or some shit by now? Or as good as? You put a ring on my goddamn finger, you get the goddamn label. Shut up."

Surprisingly, Noah did, though the worried tension outlining him remained palpable. When they'd parked across the street, it was him that Scout leaned over and kissed first. "Chill out, okay?" Scout said, brushing a fallen curl out of Noah's eyes. "It'll be alright no matter what."

Noah said okay, still a little reluctant. Scout felt something touch his shoulder---Pauling, who tugged his hat off and ran her fingers through his hair with a fixed, studious look. "Good luck," she said at last. "I hope she's home."

"Oughta be," Scout said, glancing over his shoulder at the house. "I might'a called Gabe, asked if maybe he could somehow make sure she'd be around today. Said he'd try anyway."

He'd kissed her too, retrieved his hat, and gotten out of the cab. He walked up to the shadow of the house. He very carefully did not entertain the possibility that Spy might be there, or that he might open the door. Some things weren't worth thinking about.

Scout took a deep breath and stepped into the cool darkness cast across the concrete.

The cracks in the sidewalk did not open up under him, like a little part of him had hoped it would. He kept going. He kept going right up the three cement steps that led to the door, and then he stopped, because the door was the only thing left in front of him.

His hat was still in his hands. He'd forgotten to put it back on, and somehow couldn't bring himself to now. It stayed in his right hand as he reached out to ring the doorbell. His left hesitated, and he noticed a faint tremor in the fingers. Gritting his teeth he forced it forward until it struck the button.

Scout waited, digging his fingernails into the old scars on the palm of his hand.

[--------]

Gabe had called home.

Gabe _never_ called home.

When Evelyn Cassidy picked up the phone early that morning and heard her first estranged son's voice buzzing hummingbird-like into her ear, something raw and lost shot through her. Some omen or portent, some animal sense a thousand years old, warning her. Of what? she puzzled as she spoke with Gabe, both of them acting like this wasn't wildly out of step for him.

Well, she thought, he would get around to it. She could wait. And eventually, he did. "You gonna be 'round much today then, ma? Home, I mean?"

Was she going to be home. Today was her errand day, she needed to go to the laundromat and the butcher's and the post office and--- "Sure I am, how come?"

"Oh, y'know, just wonderin'."

Gabe had never mastered the art of sounding casual. Gabe wanted her home. Well. Tomorrow could be her laundry day, and there was that frozen chicken in the freezer. Or maybe they'd go out for dinner. She could stay home. "Oh, sure I am, nothin' going on around here," she found herself saying. "Not with you boys all grown up, an' that man of mine is off doin' who knows what. I've got my soaps keepin' me busy." She didn't even _watch_ television.

Gabe laughed, and he'd always had a laugh she loved, like the wind rushing through windchimes. "Sure y'do. Great. Hey, not makin' no promises or nothin', but, ah. If you could stay put that'd be swell. Just for the day."

"Alright," she said, "what for?"

Gabe had a way of sidestepping questions. Somehow she managed to ask him the same thing three more times before they said their goodbyes, and didn't get a word more out of him, except the idea that whatever it was was quite important. Evelyn hung up the phone bewildered, and brushed her hand over the fine hair prickling on the back of her neck.

And so the day _dragged_. She was all nervous energy for an hour, flitting through the house, rearranging things, exorcising dust-devils from carpets. She burned the toast and undercooked the eggs. By the time she'd gathered back together the exploded pieces of herself enough to even think about lunch, the house itself seemed to have begun to vibrate.

And then---

The doorbell rang.

Evelyn froze, a marble statue of a woman, wooden spoon in hand. She looked at the door, the answer to her curiosity just behind its red wood.

Down went the spoon. Off went Evelyn. She opened the door. There stood a man. "Oh," she said, fumbled, and then added, "You're early!"

"Makin' good time this mornin'," the postman said with a smile. "Package for ya."

It wasn't even anything interesting, just a book she'd forgotten she'd ordered. Not at all whatever Gabe had meant. She left it in the carnage of its brown paper packaging and fled to the back steps to gather herself.

Time crawled.

She began to wonder if she was perhaps overthinking this. It was silly, wasn't it, to be so keyed up from a single phone call?

And still. And yet.

Gabe _never_ phoned. It was unprecedented.

She went to the back stoop, looking out over her overgrown little yard, and over the garden she told herself every year she would properly attend to and never did. She watched the cardinals in the young pine her boys had planted ten years back.

When the doorbell rang again, an hour and a half later, she almost didn't hear it.

Up she went, slowly, slowly, calm _down,_ she thought to herself, dear, you're coming up on fifty-seven. Act like it, won't you? So she measured her steps, checked herself in the mirror, and paused once more with her hand on the doorknob.

"Calm down," she told herself sternly, and opened the door.

[--------]

When the door opened, his mother was smaller than he remembered her. His ma was probably three or four inches taller than Pauling, but Pauling had away of drawing herself up and making the entirety of her tiny presence _loom_. His mother didn't loom, though she was pale and stark in the darkness of the doorway, staring at him blankly. Time stopped, probably for both of them, when he forced himself to meet her eyes.

 _Please don't be mad. Please please please don't be mad, I missed you so much, ma, please. I'm sorry. I'm so damn sorry ma, I ain't meant it to be so long. It's only how I ain't the same anymore, Gabe didn't even know who I_ **_was_** _when he saw me. I'm not gonna be like how you remember an' I'm scared you ain't gonna want me back, but I hope I ain't so different that you won't. I'm all screwed up, ma, but I'm not so dumb as I was. I been to hell an' back, but I learned enough on the way that I know it's the getting back part that matters. And I_ **_am_** _back, honest, I'm back, an' maybe this ain't anywhere I've ever been, but if you're here than it's_ **_home_** _. Ma,_ **_please_** _lemme come home._

It took a span of four long seconds, a stretch of wordlessness filled with his racing thoughts and thundering heartbeat and her soft gasp of breath, her fingers tightening to rattle the doorknob, before he found his voice.

"Ma. It's...it's me, Ma. Adam." And then, though the blue house with its red door was nowhere he'd been before, "I came home."

Another heartbeat. Her hand came free of the doorknob and pressed against her mouth, her face drained of color. The air had gone cold all around him, more than just the shade cast by the house, fear leeching inside, into his chest, his stomach. His hat twisted in his hands, old canvas against his palms, all those stupid scars he'd given himself, there was no way in the _world_ she'd--

She was smaller than he remembered, but still _fierce_ and she _threw_ herself at him from the halfstep height of the doorway. When her arms locked around his neck he was a child again. Not nearly a foot taller than she was and not nearly thirty and not a scarred up, broken mess of a man, but just her baby boy, no longer lost. 

He'd frozen, tense and locked up, but when her trembling hand lifted to cup the back of his head and a soft sob escaped her, Scout wrapped his arms around his mother and then they were both crying. She felt small, birdlike and shaking with emotion. It crossed his mind that she was nearly sixty. It was a long time before her hold around him loosened just enough for him to clear his throat and cough, freeing a hand to rub at his eyes. When she eased back from her tiptoes, cradling his face as she did so, he got to see her smiling through tears, happier than he could ever have hoped and looking like she hadn’t aged a day from his memory. 

"Adam. Oh, _Adam_ \--" 

"M'sorry. Ma, I'm so damn sorry, Ma, I just--"

She pulled him close again, bowed his face to press it against her shoulder and kissed his cheek firmly, her face still damp with tears. "Oh baby, I don't care. I don't care, sweetheart, I don't care about any of it, it's _you_ , you're _home_."

Scout sniffled, coughed again, and stubbornly continued to try to apologize, "I ain't meant t'..."

"You're all in one piece an' you came home, baby, ain't another thing matters."

"God though, Ma, it's been _years_ \--" 

"Darlin', let me see you..."

"If y'wanna be mad, though..."

And just babbling over each other, until she firmly shushed him, stepping down onto the front stoop and wrapping her arms around him again, burying her face in his chest.

He didn't hear the sound of the truck's door slamming, didn't notice Noah and Pauling behind him until Pauling softly clearing her throat. She was hand in hand with Noah, lovely in the shade, with tears in her eyes and a brilliant, beaming smile. Noah had locked his fingers through hers and didn't seem to be able to lift his gaze from the ground, and Scout had no idea what either of them planned to say about that. Probably that was his job.

Gently he broke out of his mother's embrace, taking her hands and managing a faint grin. "Ma? Ma, I gotta...I gotta introduce you to a couple people, an'...well..."

But his mother had already turned, her face damp with her own tears, to smile at Noah and Pauling. Pauling elbowed Noah in the ribs until he nudged her back and lifted his pale, anxious face.

And Scout wasn't sure he'd loved his mother more than in the moment her hands left his and she crossed the sidewalk, to hold her arms out to the two people he loved most in the world. And he'd never loved Pauling more than when she'd dragged Noah into the offered embrace, never loved Noah more than when he'd lifted his blue eyes tearily over his mother in law's shoulder, to grin helplessly at Scout--Adam.

"Welcome home," his ma said, and then stepped back to survey the pair of them at arms' length, Pauling with her sweet, lovely darkness and Noah, all brilliant and beautiful, white and gold. "So. Which one of you three sleeps in the middle?"

He'd been wrong. Bursting into laughter in the middle of the sidewalk, outside his mother's house in South Boston, Adam gathered his mother up into a hug again, grinning over her head at his partners. He'd never loved her more than now. 

And he'd never been happier to be home.


End file.
